01: Lighting Class: Light Principle One: The Size of the Light Source

by | Jan 3, 2017 | LE News and Info

Let’s look at light and the four principles of how light works.

First up, the size of the light source in relation to the size of the subject.

Imagine looking out the window at the front yard and without seeing the sky knowing whether it is sunny or cloudy. We do know, right?

We don’t have to see the sky to know if it is sunny or cloudy, we can tell from the way the light is behaving on the subjects in our yard. The car has a deep shadow below it if it is sunny and very little shadow at all if it is cloudy.

The plants are either casting long shadows or seemingly no shadows. The sun makes everything have a shadow, while the cloud cover acts as a shadow reliever.

We know this because we have observed the world for our whole lives and we understand how light works when it is sunny and when it is cloudy.

The sun is a tiny light source. (Yes, science nerds it is way huge, but I am talking about from where we look at it.) No more than a coin in the sky.

That is a very small light source. And it can be totally blocked out by the smallest of items: a branch, or a rose, or even a butterfly. That means that the light cannot go around the subject and is instead blocked by the subject.

Here is the equivalent of the sun in the studio. A small, unmodified light at a distance from a coffee cup.

And here is how the shadow falls on a small coffee cup when a very large light is applied. The light wraps around the coffee cup because the light is so much larger than the subject.

That is how the sun works as well.

The sun is the very small light source, and when the clouds come over the land, the sun lights the back of the clouds and they light the earth with no shadows because they go from horizon to horizon. Light is wrapping all around all the subjects it is seen by.

 

The image on the left shows how the small light source, the sun, creates hard shadows behind our subject. That is because the light source is tiny, about the size of a quarter and the window panes and the subject are much larger in relationship to that tiny light source.

A very large light source will provide very soft light since it will ‘wrap’ around the subject by the fact of it being larger than the subject.

Think of your softbox as a “cloud cover” for your light (the sun) and it makes more sense to you.

Now, this way of thinking about lighting begins to alter how we think about our lighting tools.

Question: is a 4’x5′ softbox a large softbox or a small softbox?

The answer is compared to what? Other softboxes? Yes.

The subject? Well – that depends. What is the subject?

If the subject is a Hot Air Popcorn Maker, then it is indeed a very large light source.

If our subject is a jetliner, then no – it is not a very big light source at all.

And then… how far will it be from our subject?

Distance makes the perceptual size of the light source diminish as it gets farther away. And it is that perceptual view is the one that matters.

A 20″ light source very close to a 1″ watch is a large light source. A 72″ x 72″ source far away from a 14′ square box is a small light source.

And the light will render that way as well.

LIGHT DOES THE SAME THING EVERY TIME – IT IS THE SUBJECTS THAT CHANGE THE GAME

ASSIGNMENT FOR THIS CLASS:

  1. Choose a subject less than about 8″ – like a shoe or a water bottle. Light it with a small light source (speedlight) to see how the shadows fall. Then light it with a softbox (24″ or so) in close. Very close.
  2. Move the softbox 6″ away and take another shot. Then do it again at 6″ intervals until the softbox is 6 feet away. Notice the changes in how the subject responds to the light, and how the shadows get sharper and deeper.

The size of the light source in relationship to the subject is one of the four principles of light.

Two Lenses: A Day in the North Country

by | Nov 3, 2014 | | 1 Comment

Yesterday I spent the morning wandering around an area north of Phoenix for a few hours. Joined by photographers Dennis Mong and Miachelle DePiano, we took a loop through a beautiful part of central / north Arizona. I had no expectations other than hoping I could...

Great Reads: November Books 2014

by | Nov 1, 2014 | | 0 Comments

"A Road Through Shore Pine focuses on a series of 18 never-before-seen photographs by Robert Adams (born 1937), taken in Nehalem Bay State Park, Oregon, in the fall of 2013. Adams documents a contemplative journey, made first by automobile, then by foot, along an...

Halloween Shoot: Project 52 Members

Halloween Shoot: Project 52 Members

by | Oct 31, 2014 | | 0 Comments

The assignment was to illustrate a double truck (2 page spread) magazine story on the Origins of Halloween. Layout was furnished as a layered PSD file and the P52 students had to shoot TO that layout - reversed copy and all. The assignment was a great example of how...

Basic Systems for Commercial Photographers

by | Oct 29, 2014 | | 0 Comments

My recent Lighting Essentials post on "Systems" (Don't Be Afraid of Systems) was an overview of some simple checklists that I use to keep focused and create content in an overwhelmingly busy world. The amount of people, information, education, entertainment and sheer...

Project 52 “The Catalog”

by | Oct 27, 2014 | | 0 Comments

In this assignment, the photographers had to jump through a few hoops. The previous week they had to submit a "Creative Direction" shoot showing at least two different approaches to doing the fictitious catalog. Those approaches had to meet some criteria. First is...

Off Topic Sunday, October 26, 2014

by | Oct 26, 2014 | | 0 Comments

An absolutely astoundingly hectic week. My daughter got married Friday night, and Saturday was spent on a hundred different unrelated errands. Now, Sunday is going to be for catching up and getting ready for next week. Check out this amazing commercial. And please...

Too %$#*@ Much Freedom

by | Oct 22, 2014 | | 4 Comments

Last week I railed against too many rules. Now I am asking if there is too much freedom? Could I be off my meds, or a little daffy? To complain about too many rules and then question if there may be too much freedom too… OMG, I am turning into a …. no, I won’t go...

Off Topic Sunday: October 20

by | Oct 19, 2014 | | 0 Comments

Yesterday I was asked to shoot one of the new choirs at Phoenix Children's Chorus. This is an elite group of singers that are available for gigs in the valley. This is one of my favorites from the shoot.   ON SIMPLIFICATION I am going through a simplification...

Great Reads: October 2014 Releases

by | Oct 18, 2014 | | 0 Comments

I don't know very many photographers who do not have a large collection of photo books. Mine fills an entire double walled shelve system and is still growing. I love books.  I love photographs. Nothing better than to grab an old book, a cup of tea and peruse the...

Photography: Too Many #%*#$ Rules!

by | Oct 15, 2014 | | 0 Comments

I was talking with a couple of photographers this week and we were discussing their output… or lack thereof, and I was commiserating a bit with them. I have been mired deep to the elbows in stuff that doesn’t involve cameras for the last six weeks. Very little...

New Directions, Multiple Channels

New Directions, Multiple Channels

by | Oct 8, 2014 | | 0 Comments

A few things have caught my attention lately. I mean really caught my attention. One was the great chat we had with my friend Rosh Sillars on how to price a gig in the new economy, and the other was his discussion we had off mic about photographers being able to do...

Perfume Shot To Layout

by | Sep 30, 2014 | | 0 Comments

At Project 52 last week we had an assignment to shoot a specific image of a perfume bottle. You can see the assignment here. These are some of the great images the students shot for this assignment.