Assignment 9: Lighting Ratios

Individual Work Due: Monday 11/8

COVID statement. Photographing a model who is not wearing a mask carries additional risk of transmission. Please make sure that all persons in the lighting studio are wearing masks. Please open doors and windows to increase ventilation. Please be sure that you or your model do not have COVID symptoms. Vaccination greatly reduces the risk of sickness. A mannequin may be used in place of a human subject. 

1. Set up an appealing portrait
2. Consider model posing, style, outfit, etc.
3. Arrange key light for side light, Rembrandt, or short lighting...explore and decide, sticking with it for the whole exercise. Beauty lighting doesn't work so well for this exercise
4. Shoot five variations, showing the following lighting ratios: 1:1; 1:2; 1:4; 1:8; 1:16
5. Shoot ISO 200, recommended, to avoid fill light "bottoming out" before you get to higher ratios. Remember that fill light can be moved further away to reduce intensity.

1:1

1:2

1:4

1:8

1:16

Individual Work Due: Monday 11/8

1. Set up an appealing portrait
2. Consider model posing, style, outfit, etc.
3. Arrange key light for side light, Rembrandt, or short lighting...explore and decide, sticking with it for the whole exercise. Beauty lighting doesn't work so well for this exercise
4. Shoot five variations, showing the following lighting ratios: 1:1; 1:2; 1:4; 1:8; 1:16
5. Shoot ISO 200, recommended, to avoid fill light "bottoming out" before you get to higher ratios. Remember that fill light can be moved further away to reduce intensity.

Example 1:

key:fill

f11:f11

f11:f8

f11:f5.6

f11:f4.0

f11:f2.8

Example 2, to work with fill light that has "bottomed out."

key:fill

f8:f8

f8:f5.6

f8:f4.0

f8:f2.8 

f11:f2.8 (increase shooting f-stop to f11 to preserve ratio). In this case the key light is turned up one full stop (from f8 to f11), while the fill remains on f2.8 (the lowest possible setting). 

Assignment 8: Light Directions, Portrait #1

Demo: Monday 10/18
Individual Work: Wednesday 10/27

This portrait exercise explores how placement of the key light can affect the rendering of the face. This is one of the most important concepts of portrait lighting design.

Please take care that safe COVID protocols are followed

COVID statement. Photographing a model who is not wearing a mask carries additional risk of transmission. Please make sure that all persons in the lighting studio are wearing masks. Please be sure that you or your model do not have COVID symptoms. If all participants in the photo shoot are vaccinated, risk of COVID is reduced substantially. Please open doors and windows to increase ventilation. A mannequin may be used in place of a human subject. 

Take your time. Correct light position, exposure, appropriate f-stop, focus are all important.

Create portfolio worthy portraits that explore the following:

• Fairly tight framing that features head and shoulders, without cutting off the head
• Low-key background with well-considered spot light on background. 
• Thoughtful styling...put in some planning with outfits, hair, accessories, etc. 
• Use of single key light source 
• Use reflector fill card

For each of the following. Explore how a reflector can be useful to control shadow depth

1. Explore 45/45 lighting, sometimes known as Rembrandt, achieving what is commonly referred to as the "key triangle." Submit 2 versions; one with hard light, one with soft box. 
2. Beauty lighting (top, front) (soft box only)
3. Short Lighting (soft box only)
4. Broad Lighting (soft box only)
5. Side/split lighting (soft box only)
6. Side, profile view (soft box only)

REMBRANDT LIGHTING examples

Rembrandt Lighting, hard/direct light, no fill

Rembrandt Lighting, hard/direct light, with fill

Rembrandt Lighting, soft box

Rembrandt Lighting

BEAUTY/BUTTERFLY LIGHTING examples

Beauty Lighting

Beauty Lighting

SHORT LIGHTING examples

Short Lighting

Short Lighting

BROAD LIGHTING examples

Broad Lighting 

Broad Lighting 

SIDE/SPLIT LIGHTING examples

Side (or split) Lighting

Side (or split) Lighting

SIDE PROFILE LIGHTING examples

Side Profile Lighting

Side Profile Lighting

Assignment 7: black line and white line (transparent) glass

Due: Monday, 10/11. Upload jpegs into UA Box, as per usual

If you don't know how to approach it, glass can difficult to photograph because it is transparent. In order to "see" the glass, we need to exploit either reflections on the surface of the glass, or variations in glass thickness (which may show up as dark lines). These two methods for photographing glass are thus called white-line and black-line methods.

Referring to class demo, create expressive explorations of both dark-line glass and white-line glass approaches. Be selective with glass choices, arrangement and lighting design to create something exciting. We will also use a reflective table surface, created with a piece of Plexiglass on top of black velvet. For this exercise, stick to relatively transparent glass objects only, such as glasses, vases. Color glass is okay, provided that it is not so dark that you can't see through it. Try several examples of each, with different arrangements, as you like!

Note that this assignment uses transparent glass. Eventually, if you find yourself wanting to shoot opaque color glass (like a red wine bottle), say for your upcoming still life project, you would likely shoot that with the white-line technique, combined with more advanced approaches. 

Technical hint: Meter the soft box with a reflective meter reading (no dome), setting the strobe power to 3 stops brighter than your shooting f-stop. For instance, if your camera is set to f11, set the power of the strobe to read f32 (f11->f16->f22->f32 = 3 stops) with a reflective meter reading. Yes, it's unusual; you are metering the light itself with reflective meter reading. Why? Because the light itself is appearing in your photograph, as either the background or a reflected highlight. 

Another hint: Use a long zoom setting on your lens. This will make the background appear larger. Also, if required, move your glassware a tad closer to the background, so that the background fills the frame. You should not see the edges of the soft box and/or the black foam core in your frame. 

Pertinent Reading: Chapter 7

Note, some key terminology in the book differs from what I commonly use, but it is describing the same thing. Reading the chapter should make this clear

FYI, these are equivalent / interchangeable terms:

Black-Line Glass (Chris) = "White Field Lighting" (Book)

White-Line Glass (Chris) = "Black Field Lighting" (Book)

Examples:

black line glass

white line glass