LIGHTING AND LIGHTING
EQUIPMENT
A photograph can be created only through the
action of light on a sensitized emulsion; thus light
is the most basic tool the photographer has to
apply and the primary skill the photographer has
to master. The application of light to a photo-
graphic setting can be one of the more perplexing
problems a photographer faces, for as any amateur
photographer quickly learns, what is seen with the
human eye—which has a remarkable range of per-
ception under all sorts of lighting conditions—is
not what will be translated onto a photographic
image. When photographing out-of-doors, the
basic rule is that the photographer should always
have the sun behind him/her, yet the range of con-
ditions out-of-doors is vast and no single rule can
be applied. In the absence of sunlight; at night or
indoors, the most widely used lighting source is the
flash on the camera, either built in as on modern
point-and-shoot cameras, or a flash attachment.
When using flash, the results often are not what
the photographer had in mind; harsh shadows and
a flattened perspective are just two of the problems
with this kind of lighting. Learning how light
behaves can have an enormous pay-off in satisfac-
tion and a major improvement in the resulting
picture for amateurs. For professionals, lighting is
a stock in trade.
Size of the Light Source
The sun is the most frequently used source in the
making of pictures. It is a very steady and reliable
source and even on a cloudy day there is usually
enough light available to make good photographs.
It is during the evenings and nights or indoors that
some form of supplemental lighting needs to be
used. In the case of professional studio photogra-
phers their lighting equipment and the predictabil-
ity that these lights provide is an essential part of
their practice.
When the photographer needs to apply light to a
subject or scene, it is essential to consider the rela-
tive size of the light source and the relative size of
the subject to be photographed. The sun is physi-
cally much larger than the earth (by a factor of
almost 40 times), but from our vantage point on
earth it is a relatively small light source. Although
it is brilliant and intense, compared to many struc-
tures or objects on earth, it is a relatively small light
source. When the light source is relatively small
and the subject/object relatively large the following
can be expected to happen: the shadows will be
strong and deep, the contrast in the photograph
will be very high, and every bit of textural detail
will be revealed. This can easily be verified on a
bright sunny day. The shadows are very strong and
can often be captured displaying an almost perfect
outline of the objects that cast them.
Under partly cloudy conditions, a new lighting
situation arises. The sun now illuminates the cloud,
which in turn illuminates the earth, thus the size of
the light source has changed. While the sun is still
the origin of the light, it is now the cloud that
retransmits the light, and its size determines what
happens to the shadows and contrast and textural
detail. When the relative size of the light source is
larger than the relative size of the subject/object to
be photographed the following things can be
expected to occur: the shadows will be weak or
almost non-existent, the contrast in the photograph
will be normal or low, and textural detail will not
be prominent.
These same lighting situations can be duplicated
with almost any form of man-made light. From
household light bulbs to extensive strobe systems,
all of these can be adapted to what occurs in natu-
rally available light. A simple light modifier can be a
white card, where the bulb illuminates the card and
the card in turn illuminates the subject. Professional
photographers often use white, silver, or gold
umbrellas on their strobe equipment to make the
light source larger. Sometimes a softbox is used to
change the size of the light source. The number of
variations is almost endless, and it is what can give a
photograph that special ‘‘signature’’ that is often
referred to as the style of a certain photographer.
Fashion and commercial photographers, such as
Horst P. Horst or Annie Liebovitz, often have aLIGHTING AND LIGHTING EQUIPMENT