Focus On Lighting Photos Focus on the Fundamentals.pdf

can also get anything in between:
a medium-size light of whatever
size we want.
To get from the harsh, unflattering
image on page 18 to the
improved light in the photo on
page 16, we put a large sheet of
translucent white diffusion material
between our subject and the
flash. Voilà! What is diffusion
material? Many things: cloudy
sky, thin white paper or plastic,
foggy or smoky air. All of these
can turn a small light into a bigger
one. The distance between
the light source and the diffusion
also affects the effective size of the
light: the farther away, the bigger
the light. Notice that this is exactly
the opposite of the effect of
moving an undiffused light farther
away! Moving an undiffused light
farther away makes it a smaller
light: think of the unclouded sun,
93 million miles away. Moving
a small light far enough away
to fully light a large diffusion
material evenly makes it softer.
Try putting your small flash directly
against a white shower curtain.
(We’ll talk about white shower
curtains a few times, because
it’s the largest piece of diffusion
material many people have where
they live.) Take a picture of almost
anything, move the light as far
Translucent? Transparent?
What’s the difference? Both
words describe material that
lets light through, and many
people use them interchangeably.
They mean different things,
though, and photographers
talking to each other have to get
the terms right.
from the curtain as possible, and
then shoot another picture of the
same subject without moving the
camera. (You may or may not
need to adjust exposure.) If you
don’t already understand the
Transparency allows an image to
pass through. Our neighbor’s
cat looks like a cat through
a clear glass window. But if
the same window fogs or ices
because of weather,
we still see light
coming through but no
identifiable cat. That’s
translucency.
difference the effective size of the
light makes, you will see it here
and never forget.
A large light is the kindest light
for faces. We also added some
There’s More Than <strong>On</strong>e Way to Get Things Done
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