Effective Lighting

Photographic Lighting is the illumination of pictures when photographs are taken. When a photo is taken the camera records all patterns of light within the picture, which creates a wide variety of shots and atmospheres for these shots. In this post I will be explaining the basic types of lighting, which create atmospheric yet effective shots for my magazine to show basic understanding of how I can use lighting within my own shots taken from a camera.

The first type of lighting I will address is the natural source lighting. Natural source lighting is to take a picture within the natural light source within the time of day, so you could take a photo as the sun rises to get an atmospheric glow to your picture. Another example of natural light source is to take a picture of a model looking at an off camera window to gain an extreme natural highlights of light upon the face creating a dark backdrop of the back of the models head.

A tool that many photographers use is off camera artificial lights that are called light sources. Light sources are artificial lights that are used to create backdrops within shots and also to create highlighting upon the face for specific effects. Source lighting is usually created indoors with little natural light so that the source lighting can achieve its effects uninterrupted. The amount of source lighting is usually revolves around having multiple light sources usually one to four, although it should be noted that four light sources are very rarely used with photography shots as adding four light sources is usually considered as too much lighting and makes the image too bright.

A single light source usually consists of one artificial light that can be placed anywhere around the model, usually within photography a single light source is considered to be angled towards the side of a model so that it makes an atmospheric contrast of light and dark on the model, here is an example:

In this example we have a female model in an exposed shot of a source lighting shot with one source light. The camera is angled slightly to the right as having the source light overhead would not make an effective contrast within the shot, and as the head of the model is tilted towards the left to create a further contrast of the shadow the light source is emitting to give a soft and gentle caring light for an atmosphere within the image.

Two light sources are used to make image generate an atmosphere of complexity, usually the two source lights are placed to sides on a model to make the image far more engaging with the audience than one source light would, as you get highlights of the model which create a nice balance with the shadows the two light sources create. Here is an example of two light sources:

In this shot we do have two light sources on this model, the first one is place to the right of the models face to give off the contrast in shadow and the other light is behind the model creating a “glow” behind the models hair and this type of shot generates a soft and warm atmosphere by not clashing the models features alongside two really bright light sources as the lights do not interfere with the models features, and this effect is also achieved with the use of soft out of focus lights in the background to generate a soft warmth to the shot.

Three source lighting uses three source lights to create a very clear shot with two light sources towards either side of the model with the third source light used either overhead the model or behind the model. This third light is meant to generate a sharper “glow” upon the model. Here is an example: 

In this example there are three source lights, one at the front and one at the back like with two source lights to generrate a soft glow outline on the model, however in this three source light shot we have an overhead source light additionly overhead that exaggerates the highlights of the model making the image shaper and clearer to observe.

What I have learned about effective lighting is that the positioning of where is source of light is crucial to get an effective image to replicate the tone and atmosphere of the model to fit the genre of magazine I want within my magazine.