BDSM PHOTOGRAPHY - Part 3
LIGHT
Light creates magic, it can fool your eyes, it can make ugly beautiful and vice-versa. Lighting conveys information and plays a critical role in the success of your photo.
NO FLASH
I almost always shoot with AVAILABLE LIGHT - meaning ambient light that is already there. Unless you absolutely have to, DON'T USE YOUR FLASH. It's the quickest way to make your photos bland and washed out. If you must use your flash, and your flash is built-in to your camera, tray and BOUNCE it. You can do this by placing the back of a white business card (or small mirror) at a 45-degree vertical angle against the flash and reflecting the light onto the ceiling where it will diffuse and gently light the room. However, a flash can add a sense of "caught-in-the-act" naughtiness to yoru photo.
However, one great application for your flash is actually outdoors in the bright sunlight. Sunlight will cast very deep shadows under people's hats, browline, etc. You can set most any camera to do a FILL FLASH. This is where the flash emits but with the camera at a low ASA speed and it gently fills in foreground shadows.
OPTIMIZING YOUR TECHNIQUE FOR AVAILABLE LIGHT
To shoot pics inside without using a flash you must optimize your camera to do so. If you put your camera in an auto mode with the flash disabled - it will so several things to allow you to shoot in lower light:
1. Automatically raise the ISO speed. Most camera's have variable sesitivity (ISO/ASA) - the higher this number the more sensitive the camera is to light. But there is a tradeoff: higher ISO means higher noise which appears as a grainy texture and often destroys dark colors. But this is no different than "grain" in high speed film.
2. Automatically open the aperture. In this case, a lower number means a bigger opening and more light get's through. A camera with an f4.0 opening is considered bright, f2.0 is phenomenally bright. The tradeoff is depth of field - and in this case everything closer or further from your focus point will become increasingly blurry.
3. Automatically slow the shutter speed. This is the hardest to deal with as it makes it harder to capture a moving subject without blurring and makes it harder to hold the camera steady. If you concentrate, you can hold a camera still down to 1/30 second.
Some settings your camera might allow to assist in low-light conditions:
1. Image stabilization. Corrects for camera movement and can allow for very slow shutter speeds often down to 1/8 second. However, does nothing for a moving subject.
2. Noise reduction. Employs one of several methods to reduce high ISO noise. Some double your processing time between shots.
3. Low light focus assist. Cameras need high contrast edges to focus and autofocus systems often fail under low light. This will allow a focus lamp or a dim flash to fire - temporarily aiding the sensor in achieving focus lock. Do not expect your camera to focus and release the shutter in a fast manner in low light.
Some things you can do:
1. Increase the amount of light in the room.
2. Use a tripod to stabilize the camera.
3. Hold your camera with both hands and preferably prop one of your elbows on something solid.
TYPES OF LIGHT
Key - your key light (or lights) is your primary light source. The sun is a key light source. A key light provides a sense of lighting direction or a perceivable difference of light from one side to another. Key light sources create very perceivable shadows which can conceal detail but also strongly highlight texture and curving shapes.
Fill - this is a second light source which "fills" in all the detail in shadow areas that the key light left out. A room with white walls creates it's own fill light as light is randomly scattered about. Fill lights are often diffuse (like a frosted light bulb) whch softens the character.
Back - backlight points at the backside of your image (facing the camera - but not directly into the lens). It outlines a halo around the edges of your subject. Things like hair and clothing catch backlight nicely. It can help lift your subject away from the background.
LIGHTING STYLES
Low Key - low key lighting is what we typically see in portrait photography. All light is diffuse and light comes from many different angles. Low key lighting helps cover up skin texture and strongly helps in reducing contrast. Shooting images of black leather - where the leather detail is important - against flesh calls for low key light. Low key lighting is soothing and pleasing and very informative.
High Key - this style allows your brain to fill in the blanks. You perceive a definite direction of the light. The light does not wrap around the subject. It creates very high contrast - meaning great differences between lightness and darkness - whereas low key tends to fill in the middle. This type of lighting is emotionally charged and powerful looking.
WHAT YOUR EYE SEES IS DIFFERENT FROM WHAT THE CAMERA REGISTERS
The human vision system is extremely effective and robust. It can handle extremes of color, contrast and detail. But it is not really that sensitive - working in concert with your brain it fills in the missing pieces and allows you to make conscious decisions about what you want to see. Confused? It is far beyond my ability to describe it here but please trust me that in simplest form it is a "sliding scale" in all areas.
Digital imaging has severe limitations. Color gamut (range) and light sensitivity have amazing resolving power - up to a point. At the ends of the spectrums things just fall off the cliff. Your eye starts to lose sensitivity and resolving ability at extremes of brightness and darkness - but it gently rolls off as the range increases. You camera, on the other hand, hits a brick wall. If a bright area on an image hits the maximum sensitivity of your camera, any other areas which might be brighter appear the same brightness. We call this saturation - or "wash out".
I'll have another posting on lenses. This is another huge discrepency bewteen man and machine.
As soon as I get some time, I will create example images of all of these concepts!!!! When that will be is anybody's guess...
Cheers...
Light creates magic, it can fool your eyes, it can make ugly beautiful and vice-versa. Lighting conveys information and plays a critical role in the success of your photo.
NO FLASH
I almost always shoot with AVAILABLE LIGHT - meaning ambient light that is already there. Unless you absolutely have to, DON'T USE YOUR FLASH. It's the quickest way to make your photos bland and washed out. If you must use your flash, and your flash is built-in to your camera, tray and BOUNCE it. You can do this by placing the back of a white business card (or small mirror) at a 45-degree vertical angle against the flash and reflecting the light onto the ceiling where it will diffuse and gently light the room. However, a flash can add a sense of "caught-in-the-act" naughtiness to yoru photo.
However, one great application for your flash is actually outdoors in the bright sunlight. Sunlight will cast very deep shadows under people's hats, browline, etc. You can set most any camera to do a FILL FLASH. This is where the flash emits but with the camera at a low ASA speed and it gently fills in foreground shadows.
OPTIMIZING YOUR TECHNIQUE FOR AVAILABLE LIGHT
To shoot pics inside without using a flash you must optimize your camera to do so. If you put your camera in an auto mode with the flash disabled - it will so several things to allow you to shoot in lower light:
1. Automatically raise the ISO speed. Most camera's have variable sesitivity (ISO/ASA) - the higher this number the more sensitive the camera is to light. But there is a tradeoff: higher ISO means higher noise which appears as a grainy texture and often destroys dark colors. But this is no different than "grain" in high speed film.
2. Automatically open the aperture. In this case, a lower number means a bigger opening and more light get's through. A camera with an f4.0 opening is considered bright, f2.0 is phenomenally bright. The tradeoff is depth of field - and in this case everything closer or further from your focus point will become increasingly blurry.
3. Automatically slow the shutter speed. This is the hardest to deal with as it makes it harder to capture a moving subject without blurring and makes it harder to hold the camera steady. If you concentrate, you can hold a camera still down to 1/30 second.
Some settings your camera might allow to assist in low-light conditions:
1. Image stabilization. Corrects for camera movement and can allow for very slow shutter speeds often down to 1/8 second. However, does nothing for a moving subject.
2. Noise reduction. Employs one of several methods to reduce high ISO noise. Some double your processing time between shots.
3. Low light focus assist. Cameras need high contrast edges to focus and autofocus systems often fail under low light. This will allow a focus lamp or a dim flash to fire - temporarily aiding the sensor in achieving focus lock. Do not expect your camera to focus and release the shutter in a fast manner in low light.
Some things you can do:
1. Increase the amount of light in the room.
2. Use a tripod to stabilize the camera.
3. Hold your camera with both hands and preferably prop one of your elbows on something solid.
TYPES OF LIGHT
Key - your key light (or lights) is your primary light source. The sun is a key light source. A key light provides a sense of lighting direction or a perceivable difference of light from one side to another. Key light sources create very perceivable shadows which can conceal detail but also strongly highlight texture and curving shapes.
Fill - this is a second light source which "fills" in all the detail in shadow areas that the key light left out. A room with white walls creates it's own fill light as light is randomly scattered about. Fill lights are often diffuse (like a frosted light bulb) whch softens the character.
Back - backlight points at the backside of your image (facing the camera - but not directly into the lens). It outlines a halo around the edges of your subject. Things like hair and clothing catch backlight nicely. It can help lift your subject away from the background.
LIGHTING STYLES
Low Key - low key lighting is what we typically see in portrait photography. All light is diffuse and light comes from many different angles. Low key lighting helps cover up skin texture and strongly helps in reducing contrast. Shooting images of black leather - where the leather detail is important - against flesh calls for low key light. Low key lighting is soothing and pleasing and very informative.
High Key - this style allows your brain to fill in the blanks. You perceive a definite direction of the light. The light does not wrap around the subject. It creates very high contrast - meaning great differences between lightness and darkness - whereas low key tends to fill in the middle. This type of lighting is emotionally charged and powerful looking.
WHAT YOUR EYE SEES IS DIFFERENT FROM WHAT THE CAMERA REGISTERS
The human vision system is extremely effective and robust. It can handle extremes of color, contrast and detail. But it is not really that sensitive - working in concert with your brain it fills in the missing pieces and allows you to make conscious decisions about what you want to see. Confused? It is far beyond my ability to describe it here but please trust me that in simplest form it is a "sliding scale" in all areas.
Digital imaging has severe limitations. Color gamut (range) and light sensitivity have amazing resolving power - up to a point. At the ends of the spectrums things just fall off the cliff. Your eye starts to lose sensitivity and resolving ability at extremes of brightness and darkness - but it gently rolls off as the range increases. You camera, on the other hand, hits a brick wall. If a bright area on an image hits the maximum sensitivity of your camera, any other areas which might be brighter appear the same brightness. We call this saturation - or "wash out".
I'll have another posting on lenses. This is another huge discrepency bewteen man and machine.
As soon as I get some time, I will create example images of all of these concepts!!!! When that will be is anybody's guess...
Cheers...
posted by Lthrbound at 10:10 AM
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