Lighting Techniques

Besides a camera it could be argued that lighting is the most important part of a photograph, after all photography means writing with light. Without sufficient light that being either natural or artificial photographs would just be pitch black with nothing in the scene visible.

With the photographs in this section i am trying to portray the effect light has on photogrpahs, areas that are included are:

• Three Point lighting - studio set up
• Hard and Soft Light - the difference  
• White balance - colour of light 

Three Point lighting studio set-up 

3-Point Lighting system, uses a fill light, key light and a back light. The key light acts as the main source of light for the photographer, the fill light is used to fill out any possible shadows that could show up on the backdrop and the back light is used to illuminate the backdrop.

The system we used had a key light, fill light and a reflector, the use of the reflector was to fill out any shadows on peoples faces. Health and safety related to this was the fact that they were portable light's they could easily be toppled and hit someone, the light were also extremely bright and because of the flash this could of caused harmful effects to our eyes and because of this brightness they got hot so there was the possibility of someone getting burnt.  

      The lights used in taken this photo were a key light and a fill light  with a plain white background 

Hard and Soft lighting 

   Soft Light 

 Hard Light 

These 2 photos show examples of hard and soft light. Hard light differs from soft light as it shows more contrast and has more defined shadows in them, the direction of light can also effect this, giving it a more dramatic effect and making it seem unnatural, for example the mouse looks a lot more dramatic and mysterious with the use of hard light on it due to where the light is focused on it and that shadows around it that occurred due to the use of hard light.  

White Balance 

When testing settings on the camera we set the camera to manual and changed the white balance manually for each shot. the settings were Auto, Fine, Fluorescent Light 1, 2 and 3, Shade and Incandescent. 

Auto setting

Fine

Fluorescent Light 1

Fluorescent Light 2

Fluorescent Light 3

Shade

Incandescent

RED
Is the colour of fire and blood and is  normally with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love.

GREEN
It is the colour of nature. it symbolises growth, harmony, freshness and fertility. It has a strong emotional connection with safety.

 BLUE
It is the colour of the sky and the sea It's normally associated with depth and stability. It symbolises trust loyalty, wisdom and confidence.

CYAN

Helps to open the lines of communication between the heart and the spoken word. It presents as a friendly and happy colour. It radiates the peace, calm and tranquility of blue and the balance and growth of green with the uplifting energy of yellow.

MAGENTA

It is a colour of universal harmony and emotional balance. It is spiritual yet practical, encouraging common sense and a balanced outlook on life.

YELLOW

It is the colour of sunshine, its is associated with joy and happiness