Lighting ties into exposure to control actively where parts of an image fall on the tonal scale. It also creates shading that indicates form as well as feeling of dimensionality by separating foreground, midground, or background elements. It directs attention through contrast and pattern. It creates visual aesthetics that tie into themes. It also just makes people look nicer as well as more interesting and can, of course, tie into narrative.
Lighting concerns include color balance (we’ll worry about this more later), soft/hard style, directionality, fall-off, intensity relative to exposure, placement, distance, motivation, number of subjects, and more. (Because lighting can also affect choice of aperture, particularly in cinematography versus still photography, lighting ties into choices about shallow or deep focus as well).
Read back through the chapter on lighting technique in Blain Brown’s cinematography book.
Parts 1-4: Create a set of single-person, high-quality portrait images. Shoot for a 2:1 or 4:1 contrast ratio and label images, writing down your exposure info, and photographing your lighting setup for each to include behind-the-scenes information and discuss. Include a key, fill, back, and kicker light of some kind. Light the background in some visually interesting way. Include at least one labeled example of each lighting style:
- split
- loop
- Rembrandt
- butterfly
Parts 5-6: For either loop or Rembrandt, also demonstrate “broad” and “short” (sometimes called “narrow”) key styles.
Parts 7-8: Light and photograph two individuals (medium or full shot) in conversation with downstage keys. Then light and photograph using upstage, (back) cross-key style. Include fills, backs, and kickers as best possible for a well constructed image.
Parts 9-12: Using your upstage setup, shoot a MS and CU of each individual, adjusting the lighting setup as desired or needed but maintaining plausible consistency.
Parts 13-18: Using your upstage setup, shoot OTS shots of each person, adjusting the lighting setup as desired or needed but maintaining plausible consistency. Do these at 16mm, 37mmm, and 50mm on the Fujis.
Parts 19+: Light and photograph a group of three individuals -– aim for a triangle composition of some kind, two sitting/one standing, or other depending on heights. May include planar staging or depth staging.
Include images and a pdf with notes and discussion.
We’ll re-do some setups like these in CG soon.
Start on these as soon as you can so that we can discuss this week and plan to complete before class next Tuesday.