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
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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.