Learning lighting

[mark liddell]

I have Light Science and Magic by Hunter & Fuqua and while it as an

excellent book I am still at a loss at to why many techniques and

setups I see used in fashion etc. work and why they are used. Some

of the setups used in rotovision's Pro-lighting series are pretty

far from the 'standard' portrait lighting setup I see descibed

everywhere.

 

Any help?

[ronnievalentine]

What kind of help are you looking for?

[ellis_vener_photography]

hey are used to create different "looks" which is one way of distinguishing

eitherthe photographer or the photorapher's client from the competition.

Lighting also greatly influences the emotional response in the viewer.

The standard portrait lighting set up is frankly, deathly boring. It is a

standardized formula to drop anyone into and get them in & out of the studio

quickly with a "professional" looking portrait., and if you are running tyour

typical portrait studio, time is money. if you do custom tailored set ups you

needto spend time setting up the lights, doing test exposures and adjusting

the lights, etc. And once you start doing that , you also create changes in how

the iamge is printed, and that costs the lab 9and the photorapher) time and

money.

 

Gregory Heisler , a noted poeditorial and advertising portrait photographer

from New York City, (he has done most of the Time Magazine Man of the Year

covers since 1990, covers for ESPN, in a "Canon Explorer of Light", etc.

)recently did a two hour lighting demo for a class I teach at The Portfoio

Center . Using just one Profoto flash head he created 21 distinct looks in two

hours. No Umbrella, no softbox. A Profoto beauty dish reflector was used in

one or two shots, a standard 7" reflector was used in 3 or 4 more and the rest

were done with the very simplest of lighting tools: a simple bare tube light.

[J.W. Wall]

Ellis, how can I join your class?!

[steve_hovland]

To see some high end work, get a copy of "The Portrait" from Kodak.

 

Study Rembrandt's paintings.