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PART ONE: THE PRINCIPLES OF PORTRAIT LIGHTING

The Nature

of Light

remember reading this as a youngster, and I wish I could recallexactly where I read it so I could reference it properly:"Every business speaks to itself in its own language.There is no Rosetta Stone."Like all businesses, still photographers (motion photographers havetheir own lexicon) have created a number of terms for their lights andequipment. Most of these are universal throughout the industry but, if you don't recognize the words themselves, I'll do my best to explainthe meaning. You'll get it.

THE PHYSICS OF LIGHT

The effective use of light requires knowledge of its qualities and traits.Light, as a photographic commodity, is subject to the laws of physicsand, as such, can only be used effectively if you understand its proper-ties. My mantra is, "Aside from the laws of physics, there are no rulesto good photography." To my mind, this is an absolute. Understandinglight is the creative equivalent of a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Electromagnetic Spectrum.

Light energy travels in waves, and it isthe difference between these wavelengths that film, digital chips, andour eyes perceive as color. The electromagnetic spectrum is the term forthe

full

rangeof these waves,

from

theshortest ultraviolet wavesto thelongest infrared waves. The spectrum of visible light, the waves that fallin between these two extremes, contains the wavelengths of light thatare most important to portrait photographers. Within this spectrum areall the colors of visible light: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,and violet. You can see these colors by using a prism, or when viewinga rainbow.The differences between wavelengths is also the reason that objectshave color. An apple is red, for example, because it absorbs the blue and

The effective

use of light

requires knowledgi

of its qualities

and traits.

A Image 3: Angle of incidence

A Image 4: Light bouncing off smooth vs. textured surfaces.

green from visible light andreflects back to your eyes primari-ly the red wavelengths. Similarly,an object we perceive as light intone looks that way because itreflects light efficiently (much of the light that hits it bounces back into our eyes or cameras), where-as an object we perceive as dark absorbs more light than it reflects.When the wavelengths for eachcolor are all present in equalquantities in the light emanatingfrom a source (whether that's thesun or a light bulb), we perceivethe light as "white." When therearc unequal amounts of the differ-ent wavelengths present, the lightmay be warmer (more yellow orred), or cooler (more blue). Thismeans that, depending on thelight, there may be more or less of one color of light available to bereflected by subjects. As a result,subjects may appear to have awarm or cool color cast. Our eyesdo a remarkable job of adaptingto this (ensuring that the whitepages in this book look prettymuch white whether you are read-ing them under an incandescentlamp or the noon sun in yourbackyard), but our cameras arenot necessarily so sophisticated.The impact this has on portraitphotography will be covered ingreater detail later in this chapter.

Angle of Incidence. As noted

above, it is the way that lightbounces off subjects that createsthe color we see in our images andwith our eyes. It is important tonote, however, that light bouncesoff objects in a way that is com-pletely predictable. The rule isthat the angle of incidence (theangle at which the light strikes thesurface of an object) is alwaysequal to the angle of reflection(the angle at which that samelight will be reflected off the sur-

face).

Imagine you set up a light at 85degrees to the left of a narrowmirror. The angle of incidence, inthis case, is 85 degrees. In orderto see that light, you would haveto stand at an equal angle, 85degrees, to the right of the mirror(image 3).With a mirror and other shinysurfaces (like people's eyes), thesurfaces are very uniform and thelight is reflected from them with-out much distortion. On less re-flective surfaces, the light beamsstill follow the rules of physics andreflect at the angle of incidence(image 4). However, because eachminute area of the surface is at adifferent angle to the light, youwill not see a perfect reflection of the light, but a more diffusedeffect that reveals the color andtexture of the surface.Knowledge of this is importantin portraiture on a number of lev-els, as you must be aware of where

10 part one: the principles of portrait lighting

highlights and shadows will fall

from the lights you place. Eachlight you use in a lighting scenariohas an angle of incidence and cor-responding angle of reflection.

THE PROPERTIES OF LIGHT

Color Temperature.

The way

film and digital media interpretcolor is based on a scale developedin the 1800s by one Baron Kelvin.A short explanation of his discov-ery is that a bar of pure iron, heat-ed from a beginning temperatureslightly below -270°C (0°Kelvin[K]) emits light in colors that areequivalent to the colors of lightfound in the world around us.The temperature at which the baremits light that matches a naturalor man-made light source is usedto describe the color of that light,and is therefore called the light'scolor temperature.When heated to 6000°K, forexample, the iron bar produceslight equal in color temperatureto our sun at high noon on a typ-ical summer day. All color filmsnoted as "daylight" or "daylight-balanced" are chemically manu-factured to accurately color bal-ance the tones in a scene or subject when photographed usinglight of this color temperature.(Some so-called daylight filmsmay actually be color balanced to5500°K, however, since this willproduce a very slightly warmercolor that is often more pleasingto the eye.) Keep in mind that thecolor temperature of light varieswidely over the course of the dayand with changes in atmosphericconditions. While 6000°K is con-sidered "daylight," if you were totake a color temperature lightmeter outside on a perfectly clearday you might be surprised to findit registers a color temperature of 10,000°K or even more, whichexplains why flesh tones some-times look pasty under such light.When heated to 3400°K, theiron bar produces light equal tothat of a household, tungsten-fila-ment incandescent light bulb.Tungsten light is more orangethan daylight, so "tungsten" or"tungsten-balanced" films arechemically manufactured to accu-rately neutralize this color castwhen photographing under lightof this temperature.In the studio, working withstrobe or electronic flash, thesevariations in color temperature arenot a problem since your lightswill pump out a consistent light of unvarying color temperature. Thesame holds largely true if you useincandescent lights in the studio,although they may get slightlyredder in output as they get older,become less efficient, and cooldown before failure.Photographically speaking,there are a few points to be madehere. First and foremost, yourmost normal, neutral results willbe obtained with film that is cor-rectly balanced to the light youwill be using. Second, you cancontrol the color appearing on thefinal photograph, thereby chang-ing the look of the final image, byusing the correct film-light com-bination, by using the wrongfilm-light combination, as well asby using filters on either the cam-era or lights to control one orboth. For instance, using film bal-anced for daylight but shot withincandescent light will produce animage with an orange color bal-ance, because the light is more redthan what the film is balanced for.Tungsten-balanced film shot un-der daylight will produce imagesthat are of a colder blue tone,because the film is balanced for amore red-rich spectrum and can-not match the color temperatureof daylight. For more on thistopic, see "The Film—Light Con-nection" on page 92.

The most successful

photographs

have always been lit

as if from

a single source.

Direction.

The most successfulphotographs have always been litas if from a single source. Becausewe live on Earth and have onlyone sun, we have been condi-tioned by the eons to be comfort-able with one source of light asthe basis of how we see. It's onlyreasonable that the most effectiveportraiture is that which repre-sents only one "source" or "direc-

tion" of light. This doesn't mean

that you cannot have lights that

the nature of light 11