Re: Re: Hard and Soft Lighting

#19444
Duncan Rawlinson
Keymaster

Both of these images are fantastic.

I’m particularly drawn towards your first image. You’ve done a wonderful job of not only working within a harmonious color palette of cool hues, but you’ve also used shape in such a way that helped you simplify your composition even further.

The space is virtually void of texture, and instead you’ve used the silhouette of your foreground as your primary focus. It has sharp edges, a triangular structure, a stoic looking bird well positioned in the top left corner, and all of your layers interact well with one another without cluttering your vision.

My only concern with this image is the burnt out part of the sky. Essentially, you’ve lost all detail in the area around the cent of the composition. This can’t be fixed in post production. A blown out area is an overexposed area where all digital information is lost. This generally has to with your camera’s ability to handle dynamic range. It’s important you learn about this issue. You can read our blog post about the topic here:

http://photographyicon.com/blog/2008/11/26/digital-cameras-latitude-dynamic-range/

Your second composition is equally as strong. From a lighting standpoint you’ve accomplished exactly what we were looking for from this assignment. You’re subject is properly exposed without being “blown out” in any area. You’ve maintained the information in even the brightest areas of this image.

Great work with this assignment!