LESSON 1: UNDERSTANDING LIGHT AND EQUIPMENT One of the fundamental skills that any photographer must develop is mastering light. They need to see it, use it, and create it. Lighting defines a successful photo! Think of how light affects the world around you. The landscape is shaped by light and gives you a visual story in showing the layout of the land by defining textures within the landscape. In the studio, lighting for a portrait provides you the visual information about that person, the color of their hair, the shape of their face, and the color of their eyes, and helps create a perception of that person. Products are lit by the photographer to make a product look enticing and/or tasty with the idea that we will buy the product. Lighting techniques make food look better to us, a car more appealing, a model sexier. In this lesson we will discuss a variety of different types of light, light quality, and light direction. Here is an example of one light source, the sun, lighting the landscape in Death Valley. The low angle is creating a texture of light and shadow that gives the landscape a visual impression of the shape of the land. This is ambient light-light I have no control over. This corporate portrait, taken for an magazine article used all artificial light and required 5 strobe heads with umbrellas, grids, and soft boxes as well as color gels on the lights to create this dramatic portrait. Understanding light and how it works is a vital aspect of creating great photos. As photographers, we are working with basically two types of light; available light and light we create. Available light is known as Ambient light. This is light that exists and is constant. In some cases, it is light we can turn on or off, but it is usually a continuous light source. It could be sunlight, light from street lights, light from lamps in our living room, and lights in an office or manufacturing plant. But it is always the light source that is constant and can also be looked at as the light that you may not have control over its adjustment. Supplemental or secondary light is strobe (flash) or ‘hot lights’. Strobes are flash lights and hot lights are constant lights. In both cases, you can set up these lights and move them in or out of your photo setup. Strobe lights are by far the most commonly used type of supplemental lights used in commercial photography. Strobe lights also have the ability to change the output of the light emitted during each flash by an adjustment of the power settings. Hot lights can also be adjusted by a control making brighter or dimmer, but this also changes the color temperature of the light as the power is reduced. Strobes emit a flash that is instant and does not vary much in the amount of time that it is on. There is no such thing as bad light, only light used improperly.-Andreas Feinenger LIGHTING EQUIPMENT There is a vast array of lights and accessories that can be applied to your lighting needs and each creates a different quality of lighting effects. In this lesson we will cover the basic equipment needed for commercial photography and what type of light each produces. First, consider the other equipment that should accompany your lights. Light stands and booms: I carry 14 light stands in two hard plastic light cases. The smallest are 12” tall and rise to 36” tall. These are primarily used when I need to hide a light behind something or place it under a prop and work well for background lights. I have 6 medium light stands that reach a height of 8’. I use them primarily for putting lights next to subjects or need a light at an average height. The stands I use the most are the large, heavy duty light stands. that rise to 12’. These stands are great for heavier light setups or when I need to put a light very high or bounce it off a ceiling. Here is a photo of light stands, case, and booms. On far left is an SKB Hard Golf Case which I us for all stands, umbrellas, light boxes, etc. Next is medium stand, heavy duty stand with a portable boom, a small stand, and a large studio boom on wheels with hand cranks for adjusting the lights. Reflectors: Most lights come with reflectors and they usually average around 7” in size. These reflectors are usually silver and are meant to reflect the light coming from the flash. The size and surface of the reflector determines the spread of the light and the quality. A 7” reflector has around an 80 degree spread and a silver reflector will produce a light that has more contrast than a white 7” reflector. A 22” reflector creates a much broader spread of light and is used as the key light, often by itself. The photo on the left shows a 7” and 22” reflector. The middle shows products shot with 7” reflector, right shows product shot with the soft 22” reflector. Notice the shadows? Umbrellas: These are probably the most widely used lighting accessories and have multiple uses. Umbrellas come with a variety of reflective surfaces and include soft white, soft silver metallic, silver, and gold. Your choice of umbrella surfaces is determined by the quality of light you would like to have. A soft white umbrella will produce a soft, low contrast light, with soft edged shadows. A silver umbrella will produce a hard light with more contrast and hard edged shadows. The size of the umbrella also affects the highlight/shadow relationship. A small umbrella will create a smaller spread of light creating more contrast between highlights and shadows. A larger umbrella will have less contrast between highlights and shadows. Here is an example of different umbrellas. 32” with black backing on left, middle is 54” soft white, right is 36” soft white ‘shoot through’. Many umbrellas come with black backing to maximize the output of light bounced into the umbrella. There are also umbrellas that are called ‘shoot- through’ and these are designed to produce and even softer light similar to a light box, but they throw light everywhere unlike a light box. To set up an umbrella, you open them as you would any rain umbrella and place the shaft in the umbrella opening on the strobe head. Each strobe head is different, but here on the White Lightning you align the hole in the reflector with the opening at the top of the head, and then tighten the screw to secure it. Light Boxes: This lighting accessory also comes in a variety of sizes from extra small to extra large and can be custom built for very large product needs, such as cars. The size of light spread and highlight needed for your subject will determine the size of light box you should use. Light boxes, also called Soft Boxes, produce soft light similar to umbrellas. But because the box is enclosed and has an abrupt edge, the light spread is much more, narrow than an umbrella. This is helpful for controlling the spread of light on subjects and backgrounds. Keep in mind that different manufacturers make their box sizes different than each other. One companies large may be bigger or smaller than their competitors. This photo represents a sampling of different light boxes. L to R is a Large, Medium, Extra Large, and a Strip. To assemble the light box, you need a speed ring. You begin by placing one shaft at a time into the holes until the last one, which will require an effort of slightly bending the shaft to insert it into the speed ring. Most rings have a flange that should face the direction of the flash head Grids: Honeycomb grids are used for creating a focused light from your strobes and are quite useful. These come in a variety of sizes, each creating a different degree of light spread. They work well for backgrounds, creating small highlights on products, or creating a light shape. On the left, 20 degree grid, middle 10 degree, and right 30 degree. Here is an example of the size of spot that a grid produces, 5’ from a wall. L to R, 10, 20, 30 degrees. Fill Cards There will be some situations where you will not choose to use a fill light to fill in shadows, yet you need to manage the contrast from the main light. A white card such as Foam Core, or reflector panels from Light Form or Lite Disc work well when placed next to the subject and are designed to bounce light into the shadow areas. We will get more into their use in Lesson 2. This is an example of a Flex Fill, also know as Lite Disc. This one is sitting on a light stand and can be moved into position easily. Lights: I have both studio strobe power packs, where the light head plugs into the power pack, and mono lights, where each light is the power pack and strobe head in one package. I use the power pack and heads when in the studio or location, and when I need lots of power output. The camera and film format often dictate this, but so can the photo shoot situation. When shooting an assignment on 4x5 cameras, you need substantially more flash output from your flash units to achieve the same depth of focus that you would use on 35mm.