Kirk is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and a Technical Trainer. He is also a Professional Wedding Photographer in Windsor Ontario Note: If you would be so kind as to give us a G+ and a Face Book Like if you like this post -Go Here for FB & G+Links -Thanks for dropping by.
Introduction:
In today`s post I will start my discussion of one if not the MOST IMPORTANT element to our photography. All of the things that we do and buy, the pictures that we take must use it. The pictures that we are most proud of use the key points that we will be discussing. Failure to understand, learn and apply the elements of this post and you FAIL the Course. That is what I would of course tell my students. So wake up. Get your cup of Java. Note: This is not just my opinion but it will be shared by all top photographers in the world.
These are:
- 1. Lighting
- 2. Composition
- 3. Gesture
Masters-Tip: Master these 3 elements and you master photography
Characteristics of Light:
1. Direction
2. Color Temperature
3. Softness
4. Hardness
5. Intensity
6. Color
Direction of Light:
Masters-Tip: Before I position any person to photograph I must determine first the direction that the light is or will be coming from. In many cases you will not be able to change the direction of the light. You must move and position your subjects accordingly. With our studio light sources, we move and position them relative to the subject.
As there are basically 4 lighting positions, how and where we position the light source will control the shadows and highlights in the photograph. We will speak about positioning of your subjects in a future post. Inside a house, we check to see the direction of light coming from a window. We want to pick our window light. We don't want direct sunlight, but rather soft diffused light. Outside again we don't want direct sunlight, but rather soft diffused light usually found in the shade or on a cloudy day. But there still will be direction here.
Color Temperature:
No one wants to look blue or yellow in a photograph. Normal sunlight has a color temperature of about 5600 C. Our cameras have a control called White Balance. Finding the correct color temperature setting and we control how the skin tones will look in our photos.
Masters-Tip: In his book "Skin", the author points out a quirk of human nature. Light people like to be a bit tanned looking than they really are. Darker skinned people like to look a little lighter. So even if you get the correct skin color, the author points out that the customer preferences just might be a bit different. Personally, I like to have a bit of a tan. So he is right on the money with me.
Masters-Tip: Take a picture of your subject inside with the room only being lite by yellow incandescent light. Manually set your cameras white balance to daylight or 5600 C. What do you see? Change the White balance now to 2800 C and take the picture again. Now use your flash with the white balance set to flash or 5600 C and take the picture again. What do you see? Repeat this outside. Set the color temperature to 2800 C and take the picture. What do you see?
In a future post we will gel the flash and take this picture again. What did you just learn? The white balance is digital's way of having a large number of built in color filters. More on this in a future post. How do we adjust the color temperature. You may first go back and read my post of white balance. Now use your flash with the white balance set to flash or 5600 C and take the picture again. What do you see?
Masters-Tip: Shoot color charts and calibrate the image. Shoot a grey card (almost always a good idea). For critical photos, like taking a picture of a VIP or any commissioned job, do this. It will be there for your backup information in post if needed.
Masters-Tip: Use the built in custom white balance. With the right camera, we can take a picture of something white and use a custom white balance. On some cameras, like our Canon EOS Mark II and 50D, we can correct this further. More on how to do this in another post.
Summary: In our next post we will look at the remaining characteristics of light. Go out today and start to see where your light source is coming from. Soon it will become second nature for you to first identify the direction of the light. In the coming months we will be looking at our equipment like our flash guns, our speedlites to use them as our directional light source so keep watching.
Tomorrows post will be: How not to go Broke chasing Bokeh. It was to be today's post but I though that we should post the lighting post today, so stay tuned folks.
We have a bunch of posts coming on camera review, tips and of course - Photoshop Tuesday where we will be dropping some tips every week.
Note: If you would be so kind as to give us a G+ and a Face Book Like if you like this post -Go Here: FB & G+ Links .-Thanks for dropping by.
Please use above links for FB like and G+ and not the ones below thanks
No comments:
Post a Comment