Hi, I'm Tony Northrup and for Chapter
3 of my book, Stunning Digital Photography, I'd like to talk to you about the qualities of
light and shadow. And I'm in the studio today with my
mannequin friend. No chelsea today because I
really want to be able to study the light and be able to poke at her face and with light, if you turn your head
even just a little bit it completely changes the quality of the light. I needed somebody who could stand still like only
a mannequin could do.
So as we look at a close-up a the
mannequin's base we'll see that is pretty dark, that's just
ambient light. We have just the room lights on so that you can see me but I will go ahead and turn on this
light here just the modeling light. This is a strobe but
it has a light that goes continuously and this will illuminate the model's face. This is a big softbox or
called an octobox, and as you can see it has a
huge light surface here and this creates a nice, soft, even light because you have light coming
from inside where the bulb itself is and it's hitting this corner and this light is bouncing in that direction and bouncing
in this direction and there's light over there bouncing in this direction.
If you stand in front of it it's really bathing you in light from all different
directions and the light isn't traveling in a straight line, it's travelling in every direction. So I'll spin it around to our very patient
model and what you'll see is the quality is a soft
light and it's actually really nice. Now, the
light is over here on the right side of her face so it's coming in from here and its leaving this very gentle shadow
along the far side of her face and you can see a nice gentle shadow
underneath her chin here. So that's what I.
Want you to pay attention to is the
difference between the highlights and the shadows and how they move
between the brightest areas and the darkest
areas. This is what we call soft light; when the highlights in the
shadows aren't that much different and the
differences between them are nice and smooth. I'll turn this off and go to a hard light source, a bear bulb. As I turn this light on, what we're going to
see is hard light, and this is the harshest type of light.
With the hard light you see very harsh
transition from highlights to shadows. The shadows here are much
much deeper and the highlights, you can see, specular
highlights here which are the super bright highlights that gleam. It's those specular highlights
that will make the face look kind of oily and gross and everybody gets them, especially when you
use hard light and these are the properties of hard light. Soft light has smooth
transitions from highlights the shadows and the deepness of the shadows isn't
that deep.
They're almost as bright as the highlights. Soft light has very smooth gradual
transitions and nice mid tones and a nice light fall-off, and
the difference between the shadows and highlights isn't usually as
much. Now for portraiture, I think it's obvious the soft light
looks better right? The soft light looks great! But if you're trying to show the texture
or something the hard light is often better. In fact, for things like birds
and wildlife, pets, I really like hard light.
Even on an
individual you want soft light on the face, but I
really like hard light on the hair. So understanding the
difference between soft light and hard light, shadows and highlights, is really key. Now let's try modifying that light a
little bit by adding in a diffuser. I have a diffuser here, so let me move this light back a little bit so I can put the diffuser between her.
So take note of that
shadow on her face before but the diffuser up and as
I put it up look how the shadow on her nose changes. Without the diffuser and with the
diffuser. And that's the difference between hard
and soft light. Now I'm gonna do something else, I'm gonna move it closer
to her because remember, one other properties of
light is not just the size of the light source, this is making a
small light source much larger.
By how close it is to the subject. So
even at just a couple feet you can see a really distinct shadow on her nose. But as I move it closer and closer; see
how that shadow changes? How hard or soft a light source is is defined by the
size of the light source and how close the light source is to the
subject. So you can take a hard light source like this
and move it much closer and the light in fact will be softer.
If I
get farther away it gets harder and harder. If you need
more evidence just think about the sun the sun is a huge light source but if
you go out in the middle a day when there are no clouds in the sky it's going to be extremely hard light.
It's the biggest light source in our solar system but it's so far away
that it becomes a little pinpoint of light. If it's an overcast day, well it's really the same light source, right? But those clouds, they're gathering all the light and they're
reflecting it in every different direction. So the clouds become a massive light source and
suddenly we have a much softer form of light.
Another factor that can
make light seem softer, even if it really is hard
light, is how much fill light you have. So, right
now we have a little bit of ambient light but most of the
light is coming right from this bulb here. What I will do is bounce some
light in from the other side and see how it changes the light on the subject I'm gonna grab a reflector and a reflector, it's pretty much, the name
describes it right? It's like a big thing that reflects light. So I'm gonna put this on the other side
of our patient model.
So as I slide it into place, look how those shadows change. Without the reflector and with the
reflector. No reflector, with the reflector. Still one light
source but the reflector is bouncing the light back and filling all the shadows.
It's still a
hard light and you can tell, just look at the line
in the shadows, the line in the shadow's still hard, right? The transition here is still harsh, but
there's more light in the shadows. It's a hard light source with fill. We talk about fill ratios sometimes in
photography, and that's the ratio the light in the
shadows verses your main light. So I'd like to show
you one more thing and that's the combination of the reflector and
diffusers.
So I'll grab this diffuser again and I will put the reflector up next to our patient model, and then I'll
put that diffuser in there too. And as we can see here, we see very even
light without the diffuser it gets harder with the diffuser it gets softer. Without the
reflector we have deep shadows, and with the reflector we have much more even lighting and softer shadows that aren't nearly as dark. In other words,
brighter shadows.
Now I want you to do the same practice
all the time! Whenever you're out, whether indoors or
outdoors, I want you to be studying the light. If you're outdoors on
a completely sunny day you'll have one main light, that sun will be
super bright. But I bet the shadows on the faces won't be pitch black. No, there'll be some light
in the shadows, you'll be able to go under a tree where there's not sunlight
and still be able to see, right? That's because the world around you is
creating fill.
The grass is reflecting light up, the
atmosphere itself has little water molecules in it that diffuse light. It's all pretty amazing stuff and its
complex. And there's no way I can teach it all to you because you just need to be
aware of it and then start absorbing it as you go from place to place. When you're indoors, I want you to take a look at
the lighting in the room and see how many different
light sources are there are and how they're effecting the shadows on
people's faces or coffee cups or objects around you.
Notice those shadows and which light sources are filling in
those shadows, or maybe there's only one light source and they really are pitch black. Which light sources are
genuinely soft and which are completely hard. When are
you seeing soft gradual transitions from highlights to shadows and when are you seeing harsh transitions. When are you seeing specular highlights that are just super bright and kind of giving you a sense
for the shiny and smooth texture of a surface and
when are you seeing very smooth highlights that kind of make you feel like
it's a little softer and not quite so silky smooth.
If you like this video and you want to see more free videos go to my page and click subscribe. I also hope that
you click like for this video this is part of my book
Stunning Digital Photography. So if you like this you'll probably like the book it has more than seven hours of video in it, as well as a whole book, right? If you think books are lame, if you'd rather just learn by watching videos, we'll you're not gonna learn great by just
browsing random youtube videos, you'll never get a comprehensive education. But I do have a DVD series out there,
over seven hours of video that walks you from start to finish
through all the basics and intermediate level stuff of photography including lighting lessons like this
one.
So I hope you'll check it out. You can go to sdp.Io/store or just search for Tony Northrup at
Amazon. Thanks so much..
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