Tag Archives: lighting

Photography

Shadows can be your friend

What is the difference between porn and art?

Lighting.

After all, it’s in the shadows where all manner of body parts considered too risqué, indecent or too sexy that can be hidden.

Over-exposing to the extent that there is no detail in highlights has the same effect but it isn’t as commonly used or as natural-looking.

To use shadows well, a portrait photographer needs to know how to control his lighting, not just in intensity but also in direction.

He needs to understand the ratios well enough to know how many EV (exposure value or f-stops of light) difference is needed between highlight and shadow so that they is no detail in the dark areas.

Only when he understands this will he be able to use shadow to hide blemishes, scars on faces or even create the illusion that his subject’s face is narrower than in real life producing what else? A more flattering picture. Continue reading Shadows can be your friend →

Photography

Painting-with-light2

Lizbeth Zamora’s picture of Brianna Aguirre swaying as she doodles shows what might happen if exposure builds up from repeated flashes. Notice her grey top and her torso. Had she had a white top on, her top would be over-exposed to the point where there wouldn’t be any detail.

After adding color to the plain black background by introducing the Christmas lights, I thought adding multiple images of my subject would make it even more interesting.

This is where I have to stress I had intentionally asked my students not come dressed in light shades especially not white.

For reasons far too scientific for us to ponder here, suffice to say, white reflects too much light in contrasty situations, so it’s best for your subjects to avoid wearing that color.

Also, since repeated flashes tend to build up cumulatively, over time there will be loss of detail in light colored clothing. Continue reading Painting-with-light2 →

Photography

Painting with light1

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Lights, camera & action—John Sanglang plays up to his classmates’ cameras during this long 10-second exposure. I walked behind him with the decorative Christmas lights plugged into my portable battery. I didn’t feel like tripping over wires in the dark, that’s why I used a portable battery.

I currently own 4 DSLRs and 2 Point-and-shoot cameras.

That’s more cameras than I have hands.

Even if I wanted to remotely trigger 3 and use one, I couldn’t.

I’d run out of lenses to use on all 4 bodies.

On a recent evening, I got this crazy idea that I would ‘borrow’ all my students’ cameras.

In the process I’d also teach them something about exposure. Continue reading Painting with light1 →

Photography

Still life with 3 wine glasses

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3 wine glasses in a row against a colored backdrop in a darkened room with one light can produce a interesting still life. I needed a quick idea for a quick demonstration for my students so I did an online search.

Table top photography is a tough genre.

I had one semester of  this in college.

That class taught me a lot.

Besides learning to use a 4 x 5 view camera, I learned before I pressed the shutter release, everything on the inverted image on the ground glass had to be close to perfect.

The exposure, focus, composition, lighting, camera angle, choice of props, and background all have to be right.

Unless I had several film holders, I only had 2 sheets of film I could expose at a time.

I decided to revisit this recently but not on the same scale, using my Canon Powershot G11 instead. Continue reading Still life with 3 wine glasses →