Photoshoot and Beyond
Photo by Kenneth Lau
When you light any three-dimensional object, you create four zones of light. It doesn’t matter if it is a face or a tomato. So today let’s learn from this tomato, photographed by Strobist reader Kenneth Lau.Read more »
So what is it that actually makes a light soft? And why is it a function of both size and distance?
In the portrait above, Dean is being bathed in soft umbrella light from camera right. But let’s zoom in a little closer and place some waypoints on his forehead…Read more »
This is Gary. Gary is a snail. And he’s beautifully lit by my friend Sara Lando. While babysitting Gary for a friend, Sara decided to actually build a miniature set and then photograph the snail in the style of Irving Penn. Because this is what creative people do in their spare time.
And pray tell, what beautifully soft light source is she using to subtly caress Gary and reveal his form?
Oh look, it’s a bare speedlight:Read more »
By using a second light to ensure legibility in the shadows, we can place a “floor” on how low the tones will go on our subject. But we can also combine this with the fast falloff of a closely placed key light to get total control of a subject with an inherently tough dynamic range.Read more »
Just like your focus, light has depth of field.
For this layer of control, we are going to look at two different pictures. Everything will be the same except for one thing: The distance from our light to our subject will change. Nothing else. In particular, the subject-to-background distance will not change.
Exhibit number one is a dark portrait of Dean, situated a few feet in front of a white wall, pictured above.
White wall? Yes, white. But it doesn’t look white, does it?Read more »
This little procedure just saved me over 20 gigs (yes, this is right, gigs!!) of space on my hard drive. It has to do with how Lightroom updates, read on or watch the video. Here is something I was quite surprised to realize. With each catalog, you can…
Looking for a quick down and dirty way to get more traffic? Then mention others in your blog post or status update to get more viewers! A good example of this is when you mention a product or service in your blog post, reach out to them via their social media accounts and let them…
The legibility from our fill light doesn’t call attention to itself. It just makes your other light look that much better. It introduces a balance; a range; a relationship between the two lights.
Think of it like a backup band behind a soloist: the band is there to fill in the gaps, add background and make the soloist sound even better. Fill light is the music machine to your drunken karaoke key light.
So just like we did in Lighting 101, lets take a walk around the block and explore some lighting angles. For consistency, we are going to keep the same key light source for every photo on this page. So it is just about the lighting angles — i.e., no other variables.Read more »
“One light for shape, another for detail.”
This simple concept, which I learned from photographer Jim Richardson about 25 years ago, forever changed the way that I thought about lighting. It’s like a switch was turned on inside of my brain. Read more »
If you are workng with one light, you already know that a single light can create many possibilities but also can force compromises. Do you place the light for the best modeling on someone’s face? Or do you cheat it a bit to minimize those deep shadows you just created?Read more »
