Experimenting with Light

In order to study the effects of lighting, I have used several photographs of my nephew, Leo taken on different occasions. I have not used studio lighting for any of these images but have used available lighting as well as working with the natural light of the sun using both man made and natural reflectors and filters.

The first image was taken alongside the Christmas tree with the lights hitting the side of Leo’s face. A large window in front, filtered by vertical blinds gives fill lighting and adds catch lights to his eyes. This lighting floods one side of Leo’s face with colour while adding a softly lit curve on the other cheek which is otherwise in full shade.

In the same room, I asked Leo to sit in the window, facing into the room so that he was lit from slightly behind. This lighting angle gives depth and texture to the image and the blinds provide a soft, neutral backdrop. Visible catch lights would have brought more life to the model’s face, although in providing this, I would have to be careful that the lighting effect wasn’t compromised by the extra fill lighting.

An accidental shot; Leo jumped through a glassless window as we passed through a shelter after a walk on the beach. The main light to the right of the shot comes from the beach while more subtle light from the car park fills the shadows on the other side. Although the sides of the face are well lit, the lack of front lighting has created a shadow across Leo’s nose which I find quite distracting.

In this image, Leo was climbing a tree by the River Humber during the golden hour, with strong light from a low, setting sun to the left. As with the image taken by the window, this provides clearly defined areas of light and shade giving depth to the image, yet again we are missing catch lights to the eyes.

This image, taken about five minutes later is much more evenly lit as we had moved into a small forested area which filtered the setting sunlight perfectly. The warm glow of the sun is still evident on Leo’s face, however the light fall off is much more gradual.

The last three images were taken in Leo’s back garden with a fairly low sun shining through a crop of large conifers to the left and a white wall to the right. The reflected light from the wall gives fairly even lighting to the sides of the face, however I felt that shadows around the eyes and mouth should be filled.

For this image, I asked Leo to hold a reflector in front of him, shining up towards his face. This helped to fill the shadows around the eyes quite successfully.

Although the white wall provided adequate fill lighting, I decided to try one last shot with the reflector to Leo’s right. Although some of the shadow has returned to his right eye, the reflector has made the light on each side of his face much more even; this does, however have the effect of flattening the face somewhat.

I feel that this style of lighting works well for a young child as it gives a feeling of innocence. When finding the right lighting there are many things to consider, such as the gender and age of the model as well as what kind of feeling you aim to portray. Of all the elements of photography, I feel that lighting is the most important, yet it is the one I struggle with the most, probably because there is just so much to consider with regards to lighting in every image. I am slowly making a habit of studying the lighting in images I like and dislike in order to get my head around the many concepts of such a vital resource.