Lighting for Texture

Thursday April 12, 2012

Lighting for Texture

       Lighting is one of the most important components of an excellent photograph. I used to go to the Quebec and Vermont countrysides to photograph fall landscapes. Besides the wonderful colours of the fall in Eastern North America, the lighting is also spectacular.  You have shorter days as the fall equinox approaches, and the sun is lower in the sky.

       The best lighting for landscapes is early morning and late afternoon.  Of course, this also applies at any time of the year.  There is more "drama" in a scene, because the sun is low in the sky. This creates long shadows, and provides light and dark areas (highlights and shadows) to create that drama, and 3D. 3D is simply 3-dimension. 

     Like artists before, photographers work with a 2D (2 dimension) medium -  the digital camera, and before that film. Artists learned to create a sense of depth both with highlights and shadows, as well as a palette of tones. A tone is simply a different depth or shade of a colour. If you think of red, then you can imagine pink, darker pink, rose, crimson,  and so forth.  Lighting does this as well.

    I selected a nice Hubley Die Cast 1950's-early 1960's die cast truck. It has very nice features that need to be lit to show texture or depth.  What I'll normally do is to keep the light low and to the side. In this way, the light skims across the surface and only lights the parts of a surface that are raised or away from the deeper surfaces.

A 1950's-1960's Hubley Die Cast Stake Truck

Notice how the texture of the Abe Lincoln penny (cent) shows up.

Also notice the rubber tires, the front grill of the truck, and the side panels (stakes).

A good idea is to study photographs that you like and look for the shadows and their direction.

They will inform you as to where the light is, how high it is, and whether the lighting is harsh or soft.

The area above is my "studio".

It's quite small and measures about 10' x  8 1/2' x 8 1/2'or 3m x 2.6m x 2.6mIt's small, but so far it works! I usually use 2 lights. The "main" light the one that creates the depth, and mood. That's the light to the right in the photo. The other light is called the "fill" light. It adds light into the shadow areas to reduce contrast. The reason for this is that even the digital camera cannot record the extremes of light and dark tones created with 1 light. By using a second and weaker light, the contrast is reduced,and light also is added to the dark areas.

Here's a close up photo of the previous image.

I also like to use small reflectors.

They add extra bright areas to the truck which are also called "highlights" because they may be shiny, they can also be called "specular" highlights. I got these with one of my favourite foods - smoked salmon. However, you can buy these at pro photo supply stores (getting rarer), professional studio lighting companies, and art supply stores.

You can also make them yourself with corrugated cardboard, glue, and aluminum foil.

I normally use the shiny reflectors. However you can also use matte reflectors. THese are created by using a "dulling spray" from a company like Krylon. Spraying Krylon on a shiny surface with their matte spray dulls the shine. And as I said before, you can make your own reflectors by placing the dull matte side of aluminum foil on to corrugated cardboard.

That's it for today, so thanks for dropping by,

and have a nice weekend wherever you may be.