How To Begin Studying Lighting – Update

Note: This is an article I publish regularly but intermittently. If you are planning to study photography and how to make better images, being familiar with the various classical lighting setups will be very helpful to your ability to “look for light,” even if you do not intend to set up a studio of your own. Lighting is critical to making strong images. The more you know about it, the better prepared you will be to take advantage of its various forms.

How To Begin Studying Lighting

by William Lulow

          Most people who decide to take up photography do so because they are fascinated by the art form as a visual means of expression or they derive pleasure from “creating” an image. There are also those who progress to the point of wanting to make photography their career. Yet there are many photographers who begin their life’s work without really mastering the principles of good photographic lighting both natural and artificial. They may be able to recognize a well lit picture when they see one, but creating one from scratch is another matter.  This  is the beginning of a step‑by‑step way for those who are familiar with lighting and lighting set‑ups as well as for those who have never worked with artificial lighting at all, to improve their photographs. Many professional photographers sometimes need to get back to basics when trying to solve a lighting problem. Amateurs most often need to familiarize themselves with the various possibilities that artificial lighting can provide in order to better their photographic efforts. In addition, with the advent of the digital revolution, lighting principles are becoming more and more important. For no matter what the medium, application of proper lighting techniques will never change. In fact, working with one or many of the photo‑enhancing or photo‑manipulating software packages available today requires knowledge of lighting to solve some of the more common retouching problems. If one plans to create one’s own digital images, proper lighting is critical to success.

          There are many books on the market about lighting and portraits, but my approach is different in at least one major way. It “builds” from one “lesson” to the next so that if the student progresses in a step-by-step manner, he/she will, at the end, have achieved a basic lighting technique which can then be used at any time and any place to create the type of effects desired in photographs. My lessons follow the basics of my course in PORTRAIT LIGHTING  (which was offered each semester at the New School for Social Research, Department of Photography, in New York City back in the 1980s and 1990s). Today, in my workshops, students are taught all the basic lighting setups used by professionals. They learn what the lightings are called, how to arrange lights, how to take meter readings for proper exposure and balance, how to deal with equipment, where to buy lights, and what kinds of lights to buy.

          In other blog articles, I have detailed this information. So, begin now and follow along with me. At the end, you will have a much better understanding of how to use light.

          The first lessons begin with very rudimentary lighting equipment and through demonstration and example, explain that all the more complicated lighting setups are merely derived from the basics with the addition of rather straight‑forward embellishments. For example, a one‑light set up can be created with a simple 500 watt floodlight or a rather fancy, strobe light bank. The type of light each source gives will be strikingly different, but the principles of applying each will remain the same. This is an important point to which I shall return often: if you learn the principles of good lighting, they do not change no matter how complicated the setup or what kind of lighting equipment. The light above is probably the best way to learn about light. It consists of a light bulb surrounded by just a metal reflector so that the light can be aimed at a subject. If you didn’t have some kind of reflector (or light modifier), the light would simply be dispersed randomly around the room, without being aimed at anything. So the first step is to get a reflector and aim the light at something.

           Instruction in the principles of good photographic lighting begins with a discussion of simple continuous light or “hot light.” Continuous light is light which you can see all the time. It is easy to see the effects of placement, intensity, etc., because these effects are readily observable. (With strobe, or electronic flash, it is much more difficult to see what the effect of the lighting will be, even if you use your camera’s LCD. If you have your camera connected to a laptop computer via a cord or with Eye-Fi, you can preview your lighting setups much better). Therefore, all initial examples will be obtained with the use of hot light. Once the principles of applying “hot light” to your subject are mastered, it will be easy to see the different effects you can achieve with strobe or a mixture of the two. And, you will be able to predict with a fair degree of accuracy what the final picture will look like.

          The purpose of mastering these lighting techniques should be to pre‑visualize what you want the final photograph to look like. When you have decided upon the kind of image you want to make, the process of using all the available tools to bring the physical world as close as possible to what you have imagined really becomes a step‑by‑step logical one. Granted this process is constantly modified and changed, but the initial attempt at translating what we see in our minds to a two‑dimensional surface is one of finding ways to lead the viewer to see and feel what we want him to. In other words, by the use of lighting, shadow, highlights, and accents, we send a message to the viewer, what we are thinking about the subject we photograph. A photograph by definition, is a “light picture” of something that initially exists in the real world. Beginning photographers may have an idea that they wish to convey in a snapshot or a portrait of someone. They may also have that intangible feeling that they can create something by taking a picture and printing it a certain way. But, most beginning photographers don’t have enough information about their tools to be able to translate that feeling into the two‑dimensional world of photographs. 

          Begin to understand artificial lighting with me today. We are going to start with images made with just one light. Here is one:

          Here, the light has been placed up fairly high and just to the left of the camera. Notice the deep shadows under the chin and under the subject’s nose. You can also notice a white reflection or “catchlight” in the subject’s eyes. That’s what lets you know where the light was placed.                

Here’s another image made with just one light:

Here the light was placed slightly behind the subject and off to one side. Notice the highlight created by the light. It is lighting just the edge of her face. This lighting is called an EDGE LIGHTING.

This is a SILHOUETTE LIGHTING. The light comes from behind the subjects and no light is on their faces:

          We will begin with just these two lightings, but you can already begin to see what kinds of effects you can create when light is aimed at a subject. The best way to learn about light and what it creates in photographs is by studying the various classical lighting setups and make note of what their effects are. We will discuss other lightings in subsequent blog articles. You can also look through the archives here because I publish these lightings (with diagrams to help you position the lights correctly) fairly often.