This post is part of a series entitled A Year With My Camera.
Lesson 3.1 in my own words
- The word "photography" comes from the Greek words "photos" (light) and "graphe" (drawing). So photography can be thought of as drawing with light.
- Four things the photographer needs to know about light:
- the direction the light is coming from
- the quality of light
- the color of the light
- the dynamic range of the light and fill lights
- There are two ways a photographer controls light:
- By controlling the amount of light hitting the camera's sensor
- By treating light as an individual element of the image:
- Direction of the light - move yourself in relation to the subject
- Quality of the light - move your subject in relation to the light
- Putting modifiers between the light and your subject
- Use a setting on your camera to control how the color of light is rendered on your final image
- Learning to see the light.
- Look around and pay attention to the light
- Where is it coming from?
- How bright is it? Is it brighter in one area than another?
- How many sources of light can you see?
- Which source is the strongest?
- The brain will try to even everything out. Learn to see the light as it really is, not as your brain wants you to see it.
This week's project
Using available light (indoors or out but no flash) photograph a plain,
smooth object in at least 6 different lighting situations.
- lit from above
- lit from below
- lit from the front
- lit from the back
- lit from the left
- lit from the right
- anything else you want to try
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| Above |
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| Below |
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| Front |
 |
| Back |
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| Left |
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| Right |
What I learned
This is an exercise I've done in all my drawing classes, but it was still interesting doing it with a camera. It's easier than drawing it because I didn't have to pay close attention to it to replicate it, but the affect is the same.
2 comments:
Leigh, I find this is one of the great limitations of phone cameras. One has no ability to adjust the equipment for the light and so one has to rely much more on the light as it is.
TB, I had the same problem with my point-and-shoot digital cameras. I confess I relied a lot on Gimp to correct that, but it seems that it's better to do it with the camera. That being said, there is a learning curve to go along with that!
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