In the final part of this three-part series on lighting, Robert Keeley looks at some special real-world lighting situations.
Last week we discussed the importance of natural light, and how you can use its intensity and colour to boost the creative impact of your pictures. In this final section of this report we’ll look at how to work with some special ‘real world’ lighting situations.
WINDOW LIGHT
While we’ve
discussed the impact of outdoor light, one other really effective form of
natural light can be used if you’re indoors – window light. Shooting subjects
near windows can create a great effect because windows act almost as diffusers.
If it isn’t a really bright and sunny day, generally the light streaming
through windows is softened. Coming from one direction, it can create a good
‘modelling’ effect as well. And it can be further enhanced by mixing it with
‘warmer’ artificial tungsten light - switching on a lamp or room light at the
same time.
As with direct outside sunlight, the required colour balance (see
part one) may change for window light throughout the day, but generally the impact
of this type of light is very evocative and sympathetic to ‘people’ shots – or
indeed other subjects. Translucent curtains can sometimes be an effective light
control device in this situation as well. You can include the window, or not,
in your composition.
In this scenario I had to photograph two businessmen at a
lunch. I placed them between two windows (one seen at right) and as a
result got a good lighting effect on both sides of their faces. Window
light can be extremely effective, acting much like a softbox.
ARTIFICIAL LIGHT
No rule applies
on what type of light you need to make a photograph. Man-made light sources can
be just as useful (or in some cases more so) than natural light. The real trick
here is to make sure you don’t blast your scene with too much artificial light.
Remember that once the highlights of a digital image are blown out, you won’t
be able to recover the details in that part of your scene. There are various
types of man-made light (tungsten, quartz, fluorescent), and dedicated flash
units (each made specifically for your type of camera) available for artificial
lighting. They all have their uses.
In this difficult lighting environment I used a high ISO rating to capture the miniminal light with an adequate handheld shutter speed, and relied on mixed sources of artificial light including fluoro and tungsten.
In outdoor environments you’ll encounter
artificial lighting at night. It can be used to create dramatic images, but
there are a few points worth remembering. If you plan to shoot scenes at night,
you should use a tripod. As the levels of available light will be quite low, to
get a correctly exposed image you will likely need a much slower shutter speed.
To avoid blur caused by an unsteady handholding technique, set your camera on a
tripod. You may need to bracket your image, and to score a totally sharp image,
you might also need to trigger your camera’s shutter via a cable release, or by
using the self-timer mechanism. Otherwise, press the shutter button very
carefully!
Another useful tip when shooting at night is to actually take your
shot in the period just after the sun has just set. Often the sky has an
impressive afterglow, with beautiful colours that you can use in your image. In
urban settings, as street lighting and neon signs begin operating, mixing these
with the afterglow of a sunset will create a very powerful image.
Longer
exposures (over a number of seconds or even longer) taken at night of moving
lights (cars, boats, aircraft) will create lines of light which can have great
impact. Experiment with other forms of light at night as well (your car
headlights, torches, or firelight can all work to improve your image). Dedicated
flash units synchronize their firing with the timing of your camera’s shutter,
and they can also be a great way to add more light to a scene. But they can be
‘overkill’.
Flash can be used effectively in combination with natural light. This scene was a difficult shooting scenario. The background was over-exposing whilst the foreground plaque tended to under expose. So I underexposed the background scene and used fill flash to light a particular part of the plaque.
A useful tip for dealing with this is to set your flash exposure to
-1/3 or – 2/3 EV, which will often take the edge off any highlighted points in
your scene. Dedicated flash units can be used in combination with SLRs for many
creative effects; try underexposing the scene for your camera around -1 EV,
independently of your flash setting, and this will darken the background of
your scene.
Artificial
lighting is used by professionals extensively in studio settings, but this is
really a topic is a whole other discussion, and beyond the bounds of this article,
so we’ll look at it in future.
For a look back at the rest of our series "Understanding Light" click here for Part one and here for part two.