Light is a lot of things, but we know two things for sure.
It creates texture and dimension.
So let's talk about it.
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Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan, today on The Slanted Lens, we're going to do our next segment in
the laws of light series.
We're going to talk about dimension and texture.
You know, I haven't said this enough in the series but the reason we talk about all these
principles, the reason we're talking about light and what light will do in an image or
in a video is because we're trying to take a three-dimensional experience and turn into
a one-dimensional experience.
So as you look at something in one dimension, you want to feel the three-dimensionality
of the experience, so light has gotta create dimension.
It's gotta give you a sense of depth.
It's gotta give you texture in order to see and to feel the texture that you would see
in a three-dimensional experience, but in a one-dimensional world, light is going to
have to communicate that.
So let's get started on texture and dimension.
If we're going to look at texture and dimension, then we have to understand camera view.
Camera view is the line from the camera to the subject matter.
The closer you get your light to camera view the less dimension and the less texture you're
going to have.
So let's move that light right straight to camera view.
Now, remember, camera view is not just a vertical line up and down.
It's a straight line, so the closer the light is up and down, side to side to camera view
the flatter the light is going to be on her face.
It's almost impossible to get the light directly at camera view because it's going to be in
front of the camera.
We can put it above it slightly and that would help, but Jordan's help me out here so there's
camera view.
If he raises this light up now and gets it up higher on her face, he's already moved
it off camera view.
He's moved it up.
And as it's moved up there about 35 degrees, he's now given a beautiful light on her face.
You got a nice drop shadow.
You got that nice butterfly light on her face.
He's moved off camera view up higher and we've created dimension.
No longer are her cheeks flat.
Her cheeks now have highlight or have shadows and highlights.
And so we have a very beautiful look at her face.
So if he takes this light from above camera view to below camera view, it still has texture,
it still has a dimension because there are shadows off her nose.
There's definitely shadows being created here.
It, of course, communicates more of a horror or a scary light on her face, but it's not
on camera view any longer.
So if we come back up to that 45 above, most people start out with their camera view here
and off about 35 or 45 degrees off from the left of camera.
So move it over to there and put it back on our stand there, and we can bring that light
back up.
Most people work in this area from zero to 45 degrees mostly because it's just easy.
That's where you can put the light.
You put on your camera.
You put it out on the floor.
You move around that area, but it's very close to you.
I think something magical happens when you move the light past 90 degrees or at least
past 45, so bring this light around as we go around into somewhere into there.
Now we started what's called a split light on her face.
We're getting absolutely dimension.
We're seeing the highlights.
We're getting a turn, but if she'll turn her face just slightly into the camera.
Turn a little more and look at the light there.
Look that direction.
Now we get a beautiful light on her face.
I think it's one of the prettiest places to put a light, it's just past 45.
You can even go a little further with it there around.
And now we get a gorgeous light in her face.
Once the light moves beyond 90 degrees in the image and comes behind your talent, there's
all kinds of dimension, there's all kinds of texture it creates in the back of the talent,
but your camera can't see it.
It's all happening back here.
It's just away from the camera.
So texture and dimension are always there it's just you've got to get them into the
place where it will allow your camera to see them.
That means when you're outside, you can't move the sun.
You can't move that building that's reflecting the light in, but you can move your talent.
You can rotate your talent.
You've got to create a dance between what's the background and what's my talent and what
do I do to move her into position so you get a nice light on her face and let the background
look beautiful as well.
Okay, now we've lost a lot of dimension in the side of her face.
There is no...it's all shadow.
We've lost dimension their hair.
She doesn't separate from the background.
The first thing we can do to bring some of that dimension back is to add a fill card.
As we bring this fill card in, it's going to create...start to create dimension once
again.
We'll see her hair starts to reveal itself.
We'll start to see shadows start to open up.
Sometimes this isn't enough, you know, depend on how close we can get this to her...getting
pretty close and that starts to open that up.
It's like that starts to reveal the dimension in her face, give us some line on the back
of her hair.
If I need to, I can turn on another light.
I'm going to bounce this one out of the ceiling and try to keep it off from her.
And the dangerous thing about a second light, you don't want to it be something that's looking
directly at her because now we have two key lights.
We create two sets of shadows, and it looks very unnatural to the eye.
You wanna have one key light, one set of shadows.
The safest thing to do is to use a reflector which pushes the light back into her face.
We can use a secondary source, but in this case, I'm going to bounce into the ceiling
which is going to give us the dimension on the side of her face but not create a second
set of shadows on her face.
So there is a beginning of dimension and now let's move on to texture.
In this example, we're going to take a look at how we create texture moving the light
off from camera view.
So light right now is dead on camera view.
We're looking this piece of paper that's all crumpled and it's absolutely flat.
So as you move the light around, move it around there, Jordan, you see how the texture starts
to just jump off from this page.
And all of a sudden, this turns into a mountainous landscape.
It's a fabulous example of the light goes around, goes to almost a 90 degree angle,
and now we have incredible texture.
As it comes back to the camera, it flattens all that texture out and the texture is gone.
So if he moves down off from camera view, we're going to get that same texture starts
to be created.
We get all these great shadows that fall up.
We get a fabulous look.
So if he comes up from camera view, again, we create great texture on the piece of paper.
As it gets higher and higher, we get that sense of shadows on the page.
So texture is a matter of placement of light compared to camera view.
You get dimension as you move the light off from camera view.
You also get more texture.
So if you're photographing a product, something you want to see texture in, you're not going
to want that light to be close to camera view.
You're gonna want that light around and away from camera view.
If you're photographing a person, somebody that has very deep wrinkles and they don't
want to see this, and I shot a lot of celebrities for NBC, a lot of older celebrities at NBC,
and they absolutely love light that was pretty flat.
Well, the flatter your light gets, it's closer to the camera angle of view.
So I would get that light above the camera down a little bit, then I'd put a reflector
underneath, and would soften up the shadows and just look fabulous.
If you're working on someone who has very weather-beaten skin and you wanna see all
those wrinkles, then move the light away from camera.
Get it off from camera view.
You're going to reveal all those wrinkles.
It's going to be a great fabulous black and white portrait because you need that kind
of contrast to be able to communicate.
So away from camera view reveals the wrinkles or the texture in a person's face.
So there's a look at texture and dimension.
I hope that'll help you understand a little better on where you should place your lights
and be brave, get past that 90 degrees.
Get lights a little more from the behind so that it gives you more interest, more dimension.
Learn to fill the dimension to create even deeper dimension as you fill that dimension
and create a three-dimensional experience in a one-dimensional world.
That's our goal, three-dimensional experience in a one-dimensional world.
So keep those cameras rolling, keep on clicking.
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