Lesson 7: Photography Lighting

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  • #18076
    charitymiles
    Participant

    Lesson 7: Photography Lighting

    Here are my photos for hard and soft lighting.

    #19521
    Duncan Rawlinson
    Keymaster

    Hello and sorry for the late response. We’re reorganizing the course and we fell behind. Sorry about that.

    Wow! Both of these images are beautiful.

    Let’s start by looking at your first image. You’ve used a large geographic space and you’ve managed to design your composition in a very interesting manner. For starters, you’ve used the water (be default of the time of day) as a reflective surface which has helped double the weight of the bottom of your photograph by creating an imprint of the clouds in the reflection. This also ensured the water wasn’t simply “dead space”. The reflection in the water helps add texture to the still water. Without this reflective element this photograph would not have been quite as strong. Great work.

    It’s not wrong what you’ve done with the placement of your horizon line, but I wanted you to be aware of its central placement (which doesn’t abide by the rule of thirds). The image does have a fairly formally balanced feel to it, and I don’t’ think it looks haphazardly designed, but it’s something I want you to be aware of nonetheless.

    Your second image is also spectacular. For starters, from a black and white photography standpoint you’ve done a fantastic job of locating an environment with a naturally wide tonal range. Not only does your image contain beautifully rich blacks, but it also have vibrant whites. My only concern with this image is that you’ve slightly blown out your whites (especially in the highlights in the bark of the tree). All digital information in those areas has been “clipped” and therefore couldn’t be restored in editing. You could have solved this problem by slightly decreasing your exposure levels which would have saved your whites and even crunched your blacks to be slightly deeper.

    If you haven’t already please read our blog post about the common phenomenon of how to avoid blown out whites.

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

    I love the photograph though. It’s full of texture, beautifully moulded shadows, depth and shape.

    Great work on this assignment!

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