Photography Classes Online – Icon Photography School › Forums › Photography Lessons › Lesson 7 › Assignment 7 – Lighting
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Duncan Rawlinson.
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January 20, 2009 at 11:46 pm #17581
Justine
ParticipantI have been experimenting with taking lots of photographs during the last few weeks and I felt that these two photos were the best to show hard and soft lighting. I think the beatle photograph shows hard lighting (correct me if im wrong!) because the bug comes up so crisp and clear and although there are no shadows that show the harshness of the light on it I feel you can tell that it is a harsh light from the flash on the beatle. The second photograph of soft lighting has been harder to choose! I had a number of photos but decided on this picture of a cloud – I couldn’t decide whether to use it because it is sort of ‘floating’ – there is no foreground or background particularly but the colours are so soft and beautiful I had to submit it. Hope you like it,
Justine
January 23, 2009 at 5:46 am #18998Duncan Rawlinson
KeymasterInteresting choice of images. They are not your usual hard / soft lighting settings. This assignment will be hard to critique because of the unusual nature of the photographs. However, I can shed some light on some things to take into consideration for next time.
The first image of the beatle is interesting because although it is predominantly covered by soft lighting, the flash did create a strong glare on the back of the Beatle. In this sense, the photograph doesn’t have uniform lighting. It’s both hard and soft. This isn’t wrong, you can use multiple types of lighting in each of your photographs. In fact, it’s fun to play around with altering lighting intensities from different light sources in the same photograph. My point being is that this is not a hard lighting photograph in the strictest sense of the term.
Your second image of the cloud is also interesting because it mixes both hard and soft lighting. Look on the edges of the cloud and notice that the orange highlights are actually being directly hit the sun. It’s only the internal parts of the could which are gently lit. Just because the light is a different color (in this case orange) that doesn’t mean that the lighting isn’t hard.
The more diffused a light source is the softer it will be. The more exposed the light source is the harder it will be. And as you’ve showed in your images, photographs can have both hard and soft lighting elements to them.
Again, interesting choice of shots. I look forward to seeing your next assignment.
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