Light It Up

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> <FONT SIZE="7" COLOR="#A0A0A4" FACE="Chiller" ><B>Photography by Carron</B></FONT>    </div> <bR> <div> <B>Light It Up!!  (The do's and don'ts of natural light)</B></div> <div>  <A NAME="light_it_up"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> Light.  It travels at 186,000 miles per second.  Nothing naturally occurring can travel faster than light.  Light only travels in a straight line until interrupted by some sort of reflective object or an extreme gravitational well.  Light moves as both a wave and as particles.  Light is the key to the mysteries of the universe.  Light was the first thing ever created.</div> <bR> <div> With all that, how can you ever hope to control something as forceful and powerful as natural light?</div> <bR> <div> Easy.  Duct tape, tin foil and a big hunk of cardboard.</div> <bR> <div> When I was in college, I had three professors - two of which came out of the golden age of photography.  You know those incredible glamour shots of stars like Gene Kelly and Greta Garbo, and all those war-time pin-up girls?  That's when they started shooting pictures.  These guys were Masters.  The third guy - too modern.  Good portrait photographer, but his stuff looked like everybody else's out there - standard senior pictures and weddings.  Meh.</div> <bR> <div> But these other two - they knew their stuff.  And they passed it on.  What they beat into our heads every single day was an ongoing study of LIGHT.  How to measure it, how to arrange it, what it would do under certain circumstances, what it would look like on film if you over-processed your black & white, what it would do if you over exposed you color negs.  </div> <bR> <div> I attribute to them my ability to shoot without a light meter; and being able to take a great picture and never having to bracket to "get it."  I learned to be a photography assassin.  Instead of 'one bullet one kill' for me it's 'one shot one final photo.'  If those two professors taught me anything, they taught me to get along with light.</div> <bR> <div> We've all seen the over-lit, washed out, no detail black and white model shots.  The ones where it looks like they set up bank lights in front of the poor girl then KABOOM nailed her with about 16 million watts of pure white light.</div> <bR> <div> I hate that stuff.</div> <bR> <div> Have you looked at a men's magazine?  Perfect, flawless, shadowless lighting, right?  In my book that equates to perfectly flat, plastic looking people.  Those women don't really look like that.  They've been body air-brushed before they even step onto the set.  It's taken HOURS to get the hair and makeup and nails.  Then the light is done so that instead of bringing out texture and shape, it flattens everything so it hides any flaws.  That's product photography.  And I don't like that sort of stuff either.</div> <bR> <div> If you want to really bring out the personality of a model, or you want to truly reflect a natural scene, then rely on one reflector - and the sun.  Your work will take on an entirely new feel and glow.  "Well, I'll need flash fill."  No, you won't.</div> <bR> <div> In school the two most important lighting laws I ever learned was this.  Keep your ratio of key light to fill at a 3:1 ratio, and if you want a blue sky, you don't need a polarizer, you just have to have your lens angle to the sun at 90-180 degrees.</div> <bR> <div> 3:1 ratio - what the hell is that?</div> <bR> <div> A 3:1 light ratio means that the difference between the strength of the light of your key (main) light and your fill is 1 full f-stop.  So, if you're shooting with studio flash, you'll meter your key light first and get a reading.  Say it's f-16 with the main being at least 10 feet away.  Then you measure your fill.  It should be f-11.  If it's a little over or a little under, MOVE THE LIGHT.  Don't change the power setting.  Just pull it a bit closer or back it away a little.</div> <bR> <div> The main light is the light which will give you your shadow pattern.  Rembrandt lighting, short loop, butterfly - whatever it is - you set it with your main.  Your fill is only to add in some detail to your shadows and that's it.</div> <bR> <div> But how do you do that outside?  That's simple - it's called a reflector.</div> <bR> <div> In the picture below, my two photographer friends have opted to go with the reflector option and mom is left to hang onto the studio flash they aren't using (so it doesn't blow over - it was windy that day) as they photograph Calvin, her son.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="0778dea0.jpg" border=0 width="653" height="490" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> Flash fill is okay, but I much more prefer to use the diffuse light of a reflector because it more closely approximates the look and feel of the sunlight in the rest of the photograph.  You can tell when someone uses a flash fill in sunlight, it has that 'look.'  But if you use a reflector and you use it correctly, you'll think there's nothing but sunlight.  And with a reflector - that's exactly the truth.  In the above picture, that was my friends' first experience in using a reflector as their main fill lighting and as you can see, they were having a pretty good time.</div> <bR> <div> Here's my friend Calvin.  In the picture on the left, we see the shot as it is with no help.  It was evening in deep shade on the side of a building.  The picture on the right is compliments of the reflector (using the gold metallic option).  </div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="074c80b0.jpg" border=0 width="200" height="267" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">     <IMG SRC="076c80b0.jpg" border=0 width="200" height="267" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> There are no harsh shadows being thrown from a flash onto the back wall, I don't lose the background, I can control where I want the light to fall, what angle I want it to bounce in at, feather it off to the side a bit if I need it to not be as harsh, light from the bottom to brighten up those eyes, etc.  Instead of a 'blast of light' I have a soft wash of light that makes my picture glow.  You could never tell this was shot at sundown just before we lost all available shooting light.  We still had open bright sky, but that sun was about to sink below the horizon and with its last gasp, it gave me this.</div> <bR> <div> Believe it or not, that reflector cost me over one hundred dollars.  Crazy, isn't it?  So you don't have funds for this you say?  You're just starting out and you're not sure what to do for a reflector.  My friend, let me introduce you to the term "MacGyver-ism."  As a poor starving photographer in the mid-1980's, I learned to make this stuff up as I went.</div> <bR> <div> Go to the dollar store and pick up a roll or two of heavy duty aluminum foil.  And a roll of duct tape.  Get an empty box of some good size and break it down so it folds flat.  On one side, tape the foil shiny side out.  On the other side, crumple up the foil, then flatten it back out, and tape it dull side out.  There ya go - a dual sided reflector that works just as good as my hundred dollar monstrosity.  Although, mine does fold down into a small circle for carrying around.  You're kinda stuck with the whole box thing.  But you don't feel bad if you have to throw yours out at the end of the shoot because it cost you, what, twenty-five cents to build?  Ah, MacGyver, how I love thee.</div> <bR> <div> The second part of working with light is when you can't do anything about the situation - a sky is a sky is a sky, right?</div> <bR> <div> Mayyyyybe.</div> <bR> <div> We've all seen the pictures where the sky in a shot is this amazing dramatic blue and we go out to try and recreate something just like it, and we end up with a total washout of color.</div> <bR> <div> What's up with that?</div> <bR> <div> Well, to explain that, I need to tell you how a polarizing filter works.  If you could get down close and small enough to look at a polarizing filter, you would see row after row after row after row of little 'slats'.  These 'slats' go at degrees to each other, so basically a polarizer looks like a woven mat.  When you point a polarizer at something, it is only going to allow light to travel into the lens from one direction.  If it does nothing for your picture, you turn the filter 90 degrees and it will only allow light in from the other other direction.  You keep making little adjustments back and forth, and pretty soon your glare is gone or your sky is very blue.  That's an extremely simplified rendition of what happens with a polarizer.</div> <bR> <div> Not everyone carries around one of those little polarizer beasts.  What do you do if you want a great sky in your picture, but you have no polarizer?  The answer is very simple - you stand with your shoulder at least 90 degrees to the sun.</div> <bR> <div> Bwuh?</div> <bR> <div> Say you're taking a walk one morning.  Ahead of you is a lovely scene of bright trees and maybe a lake, and the sky maybe only has a few fluffy white clouds here and there.  Take a second to determine where the sun is in relation to one of your shoulders.  Is the sun directly to your right or left?  Good - if it is, then you will get your nice, brilliant blue sky.  If it's directly in back of you, can you turn and orient your picture so the sun is more over one shoulder than directly behind you?</div> <bR> <div> What's the point of all that?</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="0792c900.jpg" border=0 width="300" height="400" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> In the picture above, you can see the high, thin clouds.  As I was walking around, the sky looked blue, but it was sort of a washed out blue.  Where there weren't any clouds, it was bluer yet.  It wasn't noon yet, so I could still get my 90 degree angle to the sun, so when I came upon this shot, I lined myself up so the sun was off my left shoulder, and just a little bit behind me.  I pointed my camera up, and *click*.  There was my brilliant blue sky.  Here's another one.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="07bc82c0.jpg" border=0 width="200" height="300" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> I did the same thing, only this time the sun was over my right shoulder and just a tiny bit behind me.  No polarizer.  I made my entire body the polarizer.  Instead of turning a filter from one angle to the other, I use my body and my position to the sun to block out which directional waves of sunlight I want to avoid.</div> <bR> <div> Keeping the sun at your back is always a good idea, but letting it sit on your shoulder is even better.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> On to the<FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Bradley Hand ITC" > </FONT><FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Bradley Hand ITC" ><A HREF="http://www.photographybycarron.com/gallery" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.photographybycarron.com/galle"><U>Portfolio</U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id17_tutorial_list.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Tutorials"><U>Read Some Tutorials</U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="mailto:carron@photographybycarron.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:carron@photographybycarron.com"><U>Contact me</U></A></div> </td> </tr></table></body>