When planning the final image, lighting should be paramount in the deliberation. Know your tools and how to use them correctly. Even if you don’t use them traditionally, you need to know what you’re doing. Think about how you’re modifying the available light, how are you showing off your subject. Are you going to go with a traditional interpretation of the scene or something more creative? Which is more appropriate?

A few things to consider when lighting a subject: the overall shape or outline of the subject; surface appearance, is it flat or contoured; is the subject smooth or rough; the color or tonal value of black and white. Different positioning of the subject, with the same lighting can produce vastly different results.

There are four main types of lighting: main/key lighting, fill lighting, accent lighting and background/foreground lighting. Main/key lighting provides the overall illumination. Fill lighting is used to control the density of the shadows. Accent lighting highlights the details of the subject, and background/foreground lighting is used to control the ratio of light between the two.

As far as the qualities of light, there are two main ones: flat and direct. Flat lighting creates soft shadows, sometimes even indistinguishable ones. Direct, on the other hand, causes sharp, potentially harsh shadows.

In general the flash built into DSLRs is restricted and weak. It does provide general illumination for the overall scene, but in an uninteresting and bland way. A hot shoe flash is still attached to the camera, but much more versatile and powerful. It’s head can be rotated to bounce off walls and ceilings. It also can be used in conduction with a multiple flash setup which provides for even more versatility. Studio strobes are the most versatile and powerful. Each light can be individually controlled and are typically setup in multiple flash setups. The main detractor is that you have to manually meter the light.

Softboxes are a wonderful tool at the photographer’s disposal. They control the quality of light with varying levels of softness available. They also come in many different sizes. It takes a small light source and spreads it over a larger area giving instantly softer shadows, thus the name, Umbrellas are great for photographing groups, as it, like a more direct softbox, spreads the light over a larger area. Both the softboxes and umbrellas decrease the amount of light because they spread it over a larger area, just something to keep in mind.

Reflectors are great for redirecting light back in to a scene. They can provide a hard of soft light, and come in many different sizes and shapes. Since they don’t produce any light themselves, the amount of light they bounce is dependent on the other lighting in the scene.

Light doesn’t behave necessarily like one might assume, it’s good to keep a few things in mind when working with it. Highlights are controlled by the distance from the subject to the lighting. Distance can also affect the quality of light. The inverse square law often trips people up. Because the relationship of available light to distance is inversely square, if you move your subject twice as far away from the light, you don’t have half the light, you have a quarter of it. Knowing how light strikes a surface and how it behaves afterward can be very helpful in setting up a creative and/or difficult scene. The angle of incidence is the angle of reflection. So, if you’re light is 45° off from your subject, 45° further will be the highlight reflection.

Journaled Time: 5 hour – reading, research and taking notes
Total Class Time: 45 hours