Focus On Lighting Photos Focus on the Fundamentals.pdf

Other modifiers: Fill
light, hair light
Now we may be done with
the picture. We’ve proven our
points about the importance of
the placement of the light and
the size of the light. Still, if we
want to do more, we can. When
working with only the one tiny
little light built into the camera,
additional enhancements make
little difference, but working with
a more powerful external light
can make these enhancements
important. Depending on the
specific picture and on personal
taste, these may be things you
will always do or things you will
never do. Either way, you should
always consider them.
Silver reflector
Hair light may sound like a silly
term for a portrait of a Sikh who
always covers his hair in public,
but that’s what photographers
usually call it. We almost never
use it for bald people, but we
frequently use it for everyone
else. A kicker is almost the same
thing, except it’s moved a little to
the side usually to light a tiny bit
of the face.
We did use a hair light for this
picture to try to get a little light
onto the back of the black turban
to separate it from the black
background. However, we didn’t
use an additional flash. We used
another silver reflector.
Our hair light accomplished very
little in this case, but we think it’s
Silver reflector
White reflector Black background
an important “little.” We think the
definition of the back of the head
matters a lot, but that’s a judgment
call. You may decide that
having the back of the head disappear
into darkness is just fine.
We didn’t think that would be just
fine, because we were determined
to do complete portrait lighting
with only one little light built into
a cheap camera. With big blond
hair or with a second light, the
hair light can be wonderful.
So here we are with a on-camera
flash used as an off-camera main
Fill light brightens the
shadows. We liked the shadow
in this picture and left it as
it was. Still, a different head
position could have made a
big difference in the lighting.
As long as the man is facing
the light, no fill is necessary.
Had he faced the camera,
though, too much of his face
might have been in shadow.
In that case, we would have
moved the main light (the
big white card) closer to the
camera to light more from
the front. We also might have
added a second white card as
a fill. We’ll talk more about fill
in the next photo. For this one,
we’re happy with the shadows.
There’s More Than <strong>On</strong>e Way to Get Things Done
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