Looking For Light
by William Lulow
Studying classical studio lighting automatically makes you a better photographer. Once you understand what light can do, your appreciation for its effects will be something you look for every single time you raise your camera to your eye. You will then begin to look for light in all of the right places and you will never look at a scene again (or a photograph for that matter), without noticing the lighting.
Here is an example of a classical portrait with a mainlight, a fill-in light and a couple of accent or highlights:
Notice the soft lighting on the face, the absence of deep shadows, the highlights on both the background and the sides of the hair. These are all elements that can be found when you are looking at light all around you.
You train your eye to see highlights. You begin to see compositions that lead your eye to the light. The lightest part of a photograph will catch your attention first. Compositions that lead the eye to the lightest part make for the strongest photographs. Whenever I’m out shooting scenes (which I love to do), I’m always looking for something that will attract the viewer’s eye. It may be a sunset that is framed by clouds. It may be highlights on the water from the sun or other lights. It may be the sun creating highlights on trees or rocks. When you understand what highlights can do to an image, you always find yourself looking for them. This is what my training in lighting has taught me.
These images illustrate exactly what I mean. Notice how the highlights capture your eye in each one:
Here, highlights are produced by the reflection of the buildings in the water.
In this image, not only the color of the sky during the sunset, but the color of the highlights on the waves add to the composition.
Here, the highlights reflecting off the underside of the clouds as well as the water make for visual impact.
Here is a shot of some rushes that are lit from the back.
This one is almost a silhouette lighting where the subject is black against a white background thereby highlighting its shape. The white fence simply draws your eye to the dark trees.
All of these images are made purposefully. They are not accidents nor are they “lucky” shots. They are carefully composed and the lighting is thought out. If you take the time to learn lighting, you will be amazed at how much better your photographs will become.
