Focus On Lighting Photos Focus on the Fundamentals.pdf

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Soft-edged shadows from large light source with good shadow detail. Want hard-edged shadows? Work without diffusion or move the flash farther away (making it a smaller light source). Shoot on a cloudless day at high noon. Want softedged shadows? Do the reverse. Shadows give shape to our subjects. We almost always want some shadow. How much? You decide. Light and Shadow 81
Compare the gourd on page 81 with the one at the beginning of this chapter. The only change here is we’ve hung a large sheet of diffusion material between the flash and the subject. Because the diffusion material makes a bigger light, we get a soft-edged shadow. Within reasonable limits, the farther away the flash is from the diffusion material, the larger the light becomes, because it begins to light the whole sheet and, in effect, becomes a bigger light. We don’t absolutely have to have a big sheet of diffusion material here. Other methods from Chapter 2 work just fine. Still, it’s pretty difficult to put a big umbrella behind the sun. Also, the closer the diffusion material is to the subject, the larger the light becomes. Remember that we said the huge sun becomes a small light because of its distance? We can apply the same principle in reverse: the closer we move the diffusion material to our subject, the softer the light becomes. 82 <strong>Focus</strong> <strong>On</strong> <strong>Lighting</strong> <strong>Photos</strong> So when we want soft-edged shadows, we need a big light. Many flash units come with diffusers that snap onto the front of the flash; if we don’t get one with the flash, we can usually buy one to fit whatever flash we have. These are simply translucent plastic. They look professional, but if professional appearance doesn’t matter, we can just as well cut a piece of a translucent carryout container to fit the flash and tape it on. (Or just tape the whole thing over the flash, which will make it a little bit bigger.) The effect is the same. These indeed are helpful and certainly mobile, but they’re still pretty small. The whole point of diffusion is to get a bigger light. To get a significantly bigger light, we have to use some of the tools in Chapter 2: diffusion material (including both softboxes and shoot-through umbrellas) and bounce (including walls, ceilings, white cards, and, once again, umbrellas). For now, we’ll use diffusion sheets. This is the bulkiest and clumsiest way to do the job, but it is often the best in terms of both controlling the light and learning the light. It’s also the cheapest. Photographers have to use the play of light and shadow to create depth. It is how the viewer gets a sense of scale, shape, and texture. The keys to excellent photography are good composition, correct exposure, and good light. There are plenty of other books to give us tips on the first two. We’re here to discuss light—its qualities, how it works, and how to amend it if what we’ve got isn’t what we want or need. We want to be able to control the light. The artistic decisions should be ours. If we want hard- or soft-edged shadows, that’s our call. But we want to know how to get whatever we want. Let’s look at some specific examples.
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Focus On</
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Focus On</
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Dedication To Polly Frye, who tirel
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Contents 127 The wrinkle 128 Eyegla
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oating publications including Chesa
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Robin Reid: Trained as a classical
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learn to work with simple, dumb lig
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Chapter 1: There’s More Than <str
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Built-in flash Shot with built-in f
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Modifier 1: A mirror Having the fla
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Modifier 2: A big white reflector I
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Other modifiers: Fill light, hair l
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Same principle: We can control the
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how many pictures shouLd i shoot? G
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Later, turn on all the automation y
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can also get anything in between: a
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24 Focus O
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We all want the most intelligent ca
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28 the sake of rapid, accurate move
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Page 47 and 48: The size of the light The size of t
Page 49 and 50: We need to know about this defect t
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Page 53 and 54: needs to consider buying one of wha
Page 55 and 56: Softbox Softboxes are boxes with di
Page 57 and 58: Diffusion The other way to make a l
Page 59 and 60: For this book, the translucent whit
Page 61 and 62: gobo to block some of that light. (
Page 63 and 64: 48 Focus O
Page 65 and 66: A commercially produced wooden cook
Page 67 and 68: any glue—all of which we already
Page 69 and 70: 54 We can use the grid for many pur
Page 71 and 72: 56 A grid solves the problem: We ha
Page 73 and 74: Lens filters Most lens filters chan
Page 76 and 77: in Our daily lives, we go through v
Page 78 and 79: The colors of sunrise and sunset ca
Page 80 and 81: Early evening. The sun is lower in
Page 82 and 83: space. The sunlit side will be both
Page 84 and 85: What happens when we go in the oppo
Page 86 and 87: setting in this open shade lighting
Page 88 and 89: Using gels for dramatic color In th
Page 90 and 91: The photo above was done by placing
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Page 95: Small lights make hard shadows. Fur
Page 99 and 100: We could solve the exposure problem
Page 101 and 102: Why does the same light look so dif
Page 103 and 104: We had to shoot the cover shot of t
Page 106 and 107: sunlight is great, and not just bec
Page 108 and 109: looks like a painting. We were too
Page 110 and 111: convert the image to black and whit
Page 112 and 113: Amending or mixing light So what do
Page 114 and 115: penetrate.) But what if we don’t
Page 116 and 117: The sky was gray. In this case, the
Page 118 and 119: Distance and haze Haze happens for
Page 120: The photo above was taken in early
Page 123 and 124: Regardless of which lighting style
Page 125 and 126: postproduction work to deepen the s
Page 127 and 128: Broad lighting Broad lighting is pr
Page 129 and 130: like to place it so that it lights
Page 131 and 132: Rim lighting/kicker Rim lighting is
Page 133 and 134: Butterfly/Beauty lighting Butterfly
Page 135 and 136: Low key versus high key lighting Bo
Page 137 and 138: We blocked the popup flash so none
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Page 141 and 142: 126 Light meters Do we need light m
Page 143 and 144: Eyeglasses and lighting: Can they g
Page 145 and 146: In the photo on page 128, we’ve g
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132 Focus
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When photographing large groups, wh
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way they can get an image of the da
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est-behaved pets rarely sit as stil
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140 Focus
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Direct reflection means that the li
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Flat metal The image below was lit
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we went ahead and put back the refl
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148 Focus
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glass is generally considered hard
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Position the camera so the viewfind
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we could have hung them with string
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A glass half full Interesting thing
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Bottle lit with off-camera flash th
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it reflected in the bottle. In this
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166 Focus
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A homemade flash trigger. We make o
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These photos are of a pianist known
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This picture uses two external flas
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the principles Of light remain the
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it is silly to spend hours to perfe
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all likelihood do some selective re
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Glossary this is an introductory bo
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photographer’s perspective from b
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Dodge: To lighten a portion of an i
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Had we had camera histogram display
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mirror reflector, often attached to
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minds, return to the original file,
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Index Page numbers followed by f in
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Lens hood, 99 Light amending or mix
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Sun light, (Continued) sunrise and
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