Focus On Lighting Photos Focus on the Fundamentals.pdf

More sophisticated gobos with
holes can create moody lighting.
With a little patience and a
sharp knife, you can make your
own. Gobos with holes are called
cookies (short for cucoloris, with
several spelling variations). The
photo below shows a homemade
gobo, which makes the light from
the flash appear to be sunlight
streaming through window blinds.
The photo on the next page
at left is a commercially made
wooden gobo to simulate, say,
light passing through tree leaves.
Certainly it’s sturdier than the
cardboard version, but you can
make something similar yourself
and spend your extra money on
other photographic equipment.
The photo at right on page 50
shows a slatted homemade cardboard
gobo in use. Depending on
the angle and the intensity of the
light passing through the gobo, it
can look like light coming through
a window with blinds or can simply
create an interesting pattern
on a background. In this case, the
gobo was clamped in place on a
stand. The studio was darkened
because the background was lit
with a continuous tungsten light
source. This light isn’t very bright,
so a long exposure was needed.
(How long an exposure? This one
was 2 seconds. But the determination
comes from how strong the
continuous light source is and how
bright we want the background
to be.) A flash was positioned
slightly off-axis camera right in a
medium-sized softbox. The flash
was used to light the man. Even
though this was a long exposure,
the man is sharp because he was
lit only by the flash.
Homemade cardboard
cookie. This would
create the effect of
light coming through
window blinds.
Tools: Now We Have Light, but How Do We Get It under Control? 49