Jay: It's time for the Laws of Light.
And we're gonna show you how to use light as a separator, separating the good lighters
from the bad lighters.
So let's get started and see what we can do.
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It was fabulous to help him look at his craft and get better.
To set a path, and course, and goals on what he needed to do to improve the work that he
was doing and be able to move himself to the next level.
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Hi.
This is Jay P. Morgan.
Today on Slanted Lens we're gonna take a look at the next principle in our Laws of Light,
the building blocks of the laws of light.
We're now gonna talk about how light creates separation.
This is an important principle because it's a three-dimensional world we live in and we
want to put it into a one-dimensional viewing experience.
So we've got to create separation.
We've got to create dimension.
We're gonna create separation using light.
It's probably one of the most fundamental tools of photography, fundamental tools of
videography, is creating separation using light.
The first thing we're gonna do, a very simple way to create separation, is I've got a single
light on my talent.
With that single light I can light my talent and I can also light my background at the
same time.
So I'm gonna create separation from my background in a very simple way.
I'm gonna just simply pan this light towards the background.
And you see it start to creep in on her.
And as it gets in there I've now used my single light.
I'm lighting the side of her face.
I'm lighting the background on the opposite side of her body.
So on the highlights side of her face we have a dark background so she separates.
On the shadows side of her face we have a light background so she separates.
Using that one light we've created a nice highlight on her face.
We've created a great separation in the background.
We've got a beautiful image here.
We can simply push a reflector in.
And that reflector is now going to open up the shadows a little bit and create a nice
look on her face.
So there's creating separation using a single light.
Now, if I want to go further with that, I can simply take this light, put it back on
her.
I can add a second light if I want to.
I mean, I can pan this light around and separate her on all sides of her body and just make
the background brighter.
I can even bring this in just a little bit and I start to create...I let that shadow
just kind of creep across the background so that I'm getting a brighter side on this side
over here.
And it starts to go a little darker over here but it's separating that little bit of darkness
over here.
I can place this background light anywhere I want to create the most or the least amount
of separation that I'd like to have on her on the background.
All right, so I'm gonna pull this out of here.
The next way to do this is very simple.
And that's why I'm just gonna simply turn on a background light on the background.
I'm gonna flood that background.
Now I get a strong separation all across the image.
I can pan this as well.
I can do whatever I'd like with it.
I can decide, "Okay, I'm gonna pan this away."
And I can create a lot of the same kinds of things with a secondary light.The first way
I showed you, having using the same light to create the key on her and to light the
background, only works when the background is very close to the subject.
I try to get the background as far away from the subject matter as possible because then
it gives me the ability to control both of them separately.
I don't have the light of my background spilling onto my subject, I don't have the light of
the subject spilling onto the background.
So if you're a long ways away, if your subject is a long ways away from your background,
then the only option is to go to a second light like we have here.
And, again, we can pan this to give us as much.
We can just flatten that background out and have a complete separation there.
Or we can pan it in and get us just a little bit of separation on the one side.
We can push it really far and let it go darker and darker to where we just get a little bit
of highlight on that side.
And we can make that as moody as possible.
I can even tilt this down if I want and pan it off the top.
And I can create even just a little bit of light on the side there.
This works the same for strobes as it does for LEDs.
I just show it with LEDs because it's a lot easier to illustrate these principals in video
showing it with LEDs.
Now, we can certainly go to what is probably the most common way to separate a subject
matter from the background.
And that is just simply add a rim light.
I'm up high so I'm getting as much coverage as I can on her hair.
I'm seeing a little bit on her shoulder.
I mean, this follows the same rule as up front.
If I bring this down lower, then I'm gonna get less separation on the top of her head
and the separation is gonna start to be on her shoulder and on the lower part of her
hair.
And that's not a bad look.
It gives us a nice line on her hair.
It gives us a nice line on her shoulder.
So you have to make a decision as you raise this up.
"How high do I want this to go up?
Do I want it to come way up here and lose a lot of that?"
You also make a decision as to where do you go in and out with it.
It's a very fascinating look.You can take this thing all the way around.
And now we have...hold on, hold on.
Don't say yet.
And we have the disco hair light.
That's really that rim all the way around her body.
And you can make that as strong or as bright as you want it depending on how you dial this
up or down.
But it's creating the same principle that we had from the side.
When the light was from the side, it gave us one view.
As we come around her it's gonna open up all of her hair.
It's gonna create a complete rim light on her hair.
So that's just a fun look there.
Now, if we look at that and combine that with a back light.
So now we're gonna go from a key light and a single light as a separator to a key light
and two lights as separator.
We just simply turn on our background.
Now we're getting some rim light and we're getting some background light.
This is not my favorite rim light.
So let's get the rim light back over where I think it looks better.
So what's nice about this setup is that we have a motivated rim light.
We have a motivated separator.
We've got a light on the background, and so automatically the viewer is okay with the
light on her hair because it looks like it's coming from the light on the background.
It really becomes motivated and you feel comfortable having it.
So there's using two lights to create separation and depth in the image.
Now what's interesting is that if you get into a situation where you have more than
one person in the image, you can use the same principles that we learned in the ball, cube,
and cylinder with people.
That is the highlight on one person.
You want to get into the shadow of the other person.I'm gonna slide in here with Laurie.
If I'm in here on her and we turn kind of sideways, and I slide way in, my highlight
now starts to fall into the shadow of her face.
And so we get great separation there.
If we turn very profile, almost profile, and I get in the right place, am I in the right
place?
Male: Forward.
There you go.
Jay: Now my profile falls onto the shadow on her face.
And if we had another we could stack this up with as many people as we wanted.
Just be kind of...I've seen this done with bands and things.
Very interesting photograph.
But that creates a sense of using people.
It makes it so people have to get in closer to one another than they may want to.
You know?
But it is...you just got to help them get over that and feel comfortable getting in
tighter to one another.
And that'll create some of the separation through shadow till...highlight the shadow
in an image.
You can do this in large groups.
Do it all the time.
Be able to create that separation.
So here's another thought on separation.
And I love this one.
If I turn this off and I flood my background, and I got to tilt this up just a little bit.
And then I just simply kill my key light.
I now have a silhouette.
Which is probably one of the simplest forms of separation that you can get.
And there she goes.
It's James Bond all over again.
Let's see those fingers here.
Whoo!
Yeah, there you go.
You go, girl.
Another fabulous way to create separation is through color.
I can simply take this background here.
I can put some color on it.
And I'm now gonna have a great separation because of color.
Now, you know what?
Our eye?
Blue especially is really nice as a separator because you feel depth in that blue color.
It gives the image a sense of depth.
A lot of times even if I'm doing a large kind of a set project?
Deep in the background I'll try to put a little bit of blue light because it just makes it
feel like it's further back there and helps to create that illusion of a three-dimensional
experience in a one-dimensional world.
So, that little bit of blue back there.
We automatically gravitate to the natural colors in her face in the image.
But the blue gives us a sense of depth and of strength of background.
So you can use color as a separator.
Very easy way to separate people just using a field of color.
One of things that's important to understand about gels and background?
And that is that if you let any white light break in.
I've got this on only two-thirds of the light but watch what happens when I open up a little
bit of the barn door on the side.
The color all goes away, almost immediately.
Now, there's some color there still, but because I've allowed white light to get in it starts
to really kill the color on it.
So you may say, "Well, I like that.
It's not super colorful."
So you can just start to take some more of the white light away and it becomes more and
more saturated with color.
So anytime people tape a gel onto a light, or onto a soft box, or anything, if you let
any white light go through they'll go, "Well, why isn't my background red?
I put a red gel on it."
Yeah, well, you didn't cover the white light completely.
You have to do that.
Once you cover it completely you'll get a very strong color look.
We want to hear from you on our Facebook group.
Get on there and post some images.
Show lighting that you've done to create separation.
We want to see it.
We want to talk about it.
Help to emphasize the principles that we're teaching through the images that you post.
So there's a look at how lighting creates separation.
We're now gonna move on to how light creates emotion and drama.
It's important to know what a light's gonna communicate when you turn it on.
So keep those cameras rolling and keep on clicking.
[00:10:21] [Silence]
[00:10:42]
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