The Surfer - © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

Photo Light­ing Basics

Light. We can’t take pho­tos with­out it, and yet it seems to be poorly under­stood by so many pho­tog­ra­phers. Some­thing that has so much influ­ence on our pho­tos deserves a look at its basic char­ac­ter­is­tics. When you think about what light is, and isn’t, you can use it to cre­ate more inter­est­ing photos.

1: Light is Light

Some pho­tog­ra­phers get hung up on the dif­fer­ence between nat­ural light and arti­fi­cial light. The prob­lem is that there’s no such thing as arti­fi­cial light. It’s all elec­tro­mag­netic radi­a­tion. Light is just the part of elec­tro­mag­netic radi­a­tion that is within the vis­i­ble spec­trum, but it behaves the same as any other radi­a­tion. There are only two ways to cre­ate light. Atoms cre­ate incan­des­cent lights when they release ther­mal vibra­tions as elec­tro­mag­netic radi­a­tion after being heated. Elec­trons cre­ate lumi­nes­cent light when they release energy as elec­tro­mag­netic radi­a­tion. Both of these types of light hap­pen in nature — from fire, sun­light, fire-​flies or even algae.

You don’t need to think about these things when cre­at­ing pho­tographs. Just don’t let mis­in­for­ma­tion and myths sway you against a type of light because of its source. Light is light.

2: Qual­ity of Light.

Rather than being con­cerned about the source of the light, pay more atten­tion to the qual­ity of the light. Pho­tog­ra­phers talk about light being hard or soft, as an indi­ca­tion of the shad­ows cast on our sub­ject. It really has more to do with the direc­tion of light and how it reflects.

Light trav­els in a straight line until it hits some­thing that causes it to reflect. Direct light from a sin­gle source can pro­duce dark shad­ows and shiny, spec­u­lar reflections.A spec­u­lar reflec­tion hap­pens when light hits a flat sur­face and bounces off at the same angle of inci­dence (mean­ing if it hit the sur­face at a 45 degree angle, it will reflect at a 45 degree angle). Direct light is hard light.

A dif­fuse reflec­tion hap­pens when light hits an uneven sub­ject. The light still reflects at the angle of inci­dent, but the uneven sur­face intro­duces more angles to cause reflec­tion in dif­fer­ent directions. That’s why soft boxes have a dif­fuser in front to spread the light around. As light hits the dif­fuser, the rough sur­face changes the direc­tion of some light par­ti­cles, pre­vent­ing shiny sur­faces and fill­ing in areas in shadow to cre­ate soft light.

3: Size Matters

The size of your light source, rel­a­tive to your sub­ject, deter­mines how hard or soft the light is on your sub­ject. The sun is a large source of light, but its dis­tance reduces its size rel­a­tive to your sub­ject. In com­par­i­son, a soft box next to your sub­ject is a much larger source of light rel­a­tive to your subject.

That’s why a dif­fuser must be close to your sub­ject to cre­ate soft light. As you move the dif­fused light source far­ther away from your sub­ject, the less dif­fused light hits your sub­ject. Why? Because that light is trav­el­ing in dif­fer­ent direc­tions. That leaves you with the direct light trav­el­ing toward your subect, even from a soft box. If you want soft light, use a large, dif­fuse source. If you want hard light, use a small, direct source.

4: Direc­tion of Light

Many times, we’re used to per­ceiv­ing light com­ing from above. The sun spends most of its time over­head. Many build­ings have over­head light­ing. It’s nat­ural for us. Maybe that’s why we have such a strong reac­tion to side­light. It’s unex­pected and may have dra­matic results. Per­haps that’s why we love see­ing the sun­rise or sun­set. It’s a brief period of day that sig­nals change. Light from below seems unnat­ural, though, invok­ing a sense of dread or fear. Under-​lighting cre­ates strange shad­ows where we aren’t used to see­ing them.

The direc­tion of your light can greatly influ­ence the mood of your scene.

5: Color of Light

Tem­per­a­ture affects the color of light, and there­fore, how we per­ceive it. In nature, incan­des­cent light changes color from red to orange, and then to yel­low, as tem­per­a­ture increases. We respond instinc­tively to the color of light — cool blue light or warm orange glow. We can make a per­son seem sickly by using green light, or the pic­ture of health using day­light. The color of light affects how the human mind per­ceives a scene. That’s why the­atri­cal pro­duc­tions use color on lights to set a mood for a scene. It’s in our nature to respond to color.

The Biggest Influence

Every­thing we see is a reflec­tion of light. By under­stand­ing and using these basic char­ac­ter­is­tics of light, we can dra­mat­i­cally improve the results of our photos.