Highlights

Highlights

by William Lulow

When a photographer acquires the ability to manipulate his or her lighting to the point where she can use light to add an extra emphasis to an image, that’s when you can say that she has really mastered the art of lighting. Here is an example:

I have removed the background in the right hand shot and left it purposely gray to put some emphasis on where, exactly the hightlights are and what they do. So, you can see the edges of the peppers, the rim of the bowl, the edges of the jade petals, and the tops of many of the foods in the basket. The way this shot is lit always begins with a large light bank placed high and above the camera position. There was then a fill-in light placed below the table to light up the bottom of the basket. Then two accent lights were added, one high and to the left and the other high and to the right. Four lights were used here, but the lighting doesn’t call attention to itself. It creates interest in the image by highlighting some of the various elements.

What is a “highlight”?

A “highlight” is an accent light. It is added to an image or even often found in natural light situations and serves to call attention to some part of the image. I have mentioned in previous articles, how light objects tend to jump out at a viewer while darker objects tend to blend in to the overall composition. So, if a photographer wanted to emphasize or call attention to part of an image, he or she might employ an accent light or highlight. Here is an example:

When you view this image, what is the first thing you see? I seem to be drawn to the reflections of the light off the low-tide areas and the seats of the rowboats. Why? Because they are the lightest objects in the frame. Photographs are usually made up of colors and/or various shades of dark tones and light tones. In this particular image, the play between the highlights and the shadows really makes the composition.

So, highlights attract our attention. Because of this they can serve a few useful functions in photographs:

1. They can call our attention to something in an image we want viewers to see
2. They can help certain parts of images stand out from the background
3. They can add a certain sparkle to an image that serves to integrate the light parts with the darker ones.

Here is a portrait to which I added some highlights:

Can you see where they are? They are all the whiter or lighter areas of the image. Look at how the hair is highlighted and therefore separated from the darker background. These highlights add a certain “pop” to the overall image. They make the subject stand out.  Here is another example:

In this image, the highlights were placed to add accents to the light-colored hair and make it stand out from the background. It gives the entire image that “sparkle” like in the shot of the rowboats above. Here is the lighting diagram for this image:

When I was learning about lighting and saw results like this, it prompted me to look for the same kind of reaction when I saw various instances of natural light as well. I often say to my students, when they begin to learn about lighting and studio lighting for photography, that once they learn about lighting, they will never again look at a scene or a photograph without noticing the lighting! And it’s true. How many times have you found yourself looking at a sunset and being amazed at the light? How often have you looked at a reflection and felt the beauty there? That’s what really good lighting does. It evokes feelings without calling attention to itself unnecessarily.

One more example:

Here, the snow itself provides the highlights and it is the opposition of the darkness of the road that makes the composition effective.

Highlights are effective ways of calling attention to certain areas in a photograph. You can find them in nature or create them in the studio. But they should only add to the overall lighting scheme not attract attention to themselves unless, with natural light, they constitute the main attraction in the image itself, such as a sunset. Many photographers who use a few lights in their studio setups, just use them all. Lighting arrangements should begin with one light and add others as they are needed. You never want to use every light you have just because they are there. They always must serve their purposes. The MAIN LIGHT should provide most of the illumination. The FILL-IN LIGHT should just provide enough light to make any shadows created by the main light transparent. The ACCENT LIGHT or HIGHLIGHT should only provide that extra sparkle or separate the subject from the background so it can be seen more easily.

One additional instruction here: if you want a highlight to reproduce as white in the image, it should be about one f/stop BRIGHTER than the mainlight or the overall lighting in the image. When I set up my lights like in the diagram above, the accent lights are often used WITHOUT any diffusion or bounce. So, when the mainlight is bounced or diffused, the accent lights will, almost naturally, be one f/stop brighter. Another thing you can do if you are shooting in the studio and your lights are set up as in the diagram above, you can increase the power of the portion of your flash generator that controls the bounced mainlight by one stop and leave the power on the accent lights, which are used “raw” or non-diffused, the same:

Here, the two “raw” heads with no diffusion are set one f/stop (125w/s) less than the mainlight (which was bounced into my big umbrella). This ensures that the highlights will reproduce as white. This could also be achieved by moving the highlights (accents) half the distance closer to the subject, anything that will maintain the one f/stop difference.

To sum up, you want to make sure that any highlights you add to your overall lighting setup just serve to provide separation between subject and background or to add some extra sparkle to the overall setup.