Reading the Light of American Photography (Part One)

Recently, I was reading a book called "American Photography Run Out", which was very enlightening. I want to share a thing or two with you, hoping to help your photography skills.

It is true that "light" is the raw material of photographic works. Because all the objects or actions we shoot are actually manipulating light to convey emotions or thoughts through images. Therefore, in addition to the basic composition, the most worthy of our in-depth study is how to use it. If you want to learn photography well, learning to use light is the foundation of the foundation.

Unfortunately, in China, "using light" is either a pure concept, which uses up six elements and what is smooth, backlit and sidelight; Or talk about skills, metering, exposure, and the top light that is not conducive to taking portraits. The angle between the light source and the subject should be 25 ~ 45 ... I'm at a loss. This knowledge may be useful, but it is useless to understand why you want to do it, such as why you want to take a close-up shot. Is this method universal? What should I do if my skin is bad? If you know it but don't know why, once you change the environment, background or theme, you still don't know how to use it.

After searching for a day, I finally found an old book, which is the aforementioned Light of Photography in America (the latest fifth edition is called The Light of Photography in America).

It is said that this book is old because the first edition of this book was first published in 1990, and it has been 28 years since then. The case in its predecessor, The Essence of Photographic Lighting Technology, is mainly film. But as the author said, the trend of photographic light is constantly changing, but based on the characteristics of light, its principle will not change unless the basic physics changes, which is why the value of this book will last forever.

Let me introduce the author of this book, Phil Hunt. Although I am not a professional photographer, I am still surprised by his resume, especially since his clients include National Geographic magazine. Although many photographers from China have been selected for National Geographic magazine, few of them can write a tutorial, and even less can make the truth of "running out" easy to understand.

In addition to the easy-to-understand theory, after reading a few chapters for the first time, I can still feel the rigor of the author's book writing and the tolerance of photography technology, which really let me see the ideas and methods of teaching people to fish.

Let's take a look at the effect after learning this book. Steven Beaver mentioned in the above picture is also the co-author of this book and one of the beneficiaries of the last edition of this book. In addition, there are many similar examples to prove the value of this book. For example:

These are just some successful cases published in China in September 2008. Now photographers and non-photographers inspired by this book can probably circle the earth several times. Although all the lighting in this book is explained by indoor lighting, I believe these methods can also be extended to outdoor lighting, and the skills and methods should be the same.

To learn how to use light, we need to know the reflection of light first, because the light captured by our camera is generally not a direct light source, but a reflection formed by the light source shining on the shooting object. If you don't know the reflection of light, it will be difficult to shoot specific objects. For example, when shooting objects made of metal or glass, or shooting calm water, we may blur the photos, or shoot strong reflections, or shoot all kinds of unnecessary reflections and projections ... Therefore, understanding the reflection of light is the basis for using and distributing light.

There are three kinds of reflections of light in nature: diffuse reflection, direct reflection (also called specular reflection) and polarized light reflection. When light strikes an object, these three kinds of reflections occur. The difference is that objects with different materials will produce different types of reflections. Such as white cloth or white paper, its reflection is mainly diffuse reflection, and there is almost no direct and polarized reflection; The black plastic plate hardly produces diffuse reflection, but more is polarized reflection and direct reflection; On the other hand, a metal with a smooth surface will produce a lot of direct reflection.

Different reflections are only related to the material of the object surface, and have nothing to do with what light source and how big the light source is.

How to determine what type of reflected light is? Generally, objects with rough surfaces will produce a lot of diffuse reflection. Most objects in life are diffuse reflection materials, while insulators with smooth surfaces will produce polarized light, and conductors with smooth surfaces will produce a lot of specular reflection.

In addition to distinguishing the reflection types of light by materials, we can also use polarizers. If we see light darkening through a polarizer, it means that this reflection is partially polarized. If the brightness has not changed, this reflection belongs to direct reflection.

What are the benefits of knowing the reflection type?

Shooting different objects requires different reflection types. For example, if you want to shoot a notebook with black leather, because black hardly produces diffuse reflection, so we need to shoot with the help of direct light produced by black leather. If the surface of the object is smooth, that is, there is a lot of direct light, then we need to control the angle system and try to do some diffuse reflection to meet the requirements, because diffuse reflection can make the details of the surface of the object more prominent.

A good example is that we often use diffuse reflection to shoot portraits. After many reflections, diffuse reflection has no obvious directionality, so its light is softer and it is easier to show the details and femininity of the characters.

For polarized light, a typical example is shooting the moon. The moon reflects sunlight, most of which is polarized light. If you shoot directly with a SLR or a mobile phone, it is likely to shoot a group of lights, not details such as craters on the moon.

At this time, it is a very good method to filter out some polarized light with a polarizer:

In most cases, we need to use diffuse reflection to represent the surface of an object, because using direct reflection will blur the surface of the object. Of course, those objects with black surfaces need to be treated differently.

Of course, light can not only represent the surface of an object, but also its shape and outline. Usually the objects we shoot are three-dimensional. What best represents the shape and outline of an object in three-dimensional space? Yes, it's a shadow. There is no shadow in two-dimensional space, because there is no depth in two-dimensional space. Shadow is a representation of the depth of an object. Of course, in addition to shadows, there are also the deformation of perspective and the change of background color to express depth. But the performance of shadows is the most common in shooting.

There are three main factors that affect the shadow:

The size of the light source, that is, the size of the light source determines the "soft and hard" of the shadow. "Soft and hard" here refers to the blur degree of the shadow edge. If the shadow part and the bright part are bright, such a shadow is called "hard shadow", and the light source that causes "hard shadow" is called "hard light source". On the contrary, if the shadow part and the bright part are blurred and the boundary of the shadow is not very clear, then such a shadow is called "soft shadow" and such a light source is called "soft light source".

Theoretically, small light sources produce hard shadows, while large light sources produce soft shadows. But this is relative, because the hardness of the shadow is not only related to the size of the light source itself, but also related to the distance between the subject and the light source.

The closer the light source is to the subject, the more blurred the shadow is, and the clearer the shadow is. If you don't believe me, turn on the flashlight of your mobile phone and illuminate your fingers. Although the sun is very big, it is far away from us, so it is a small light source. Therefore, when there is no cloud cover, the shadow produced by the midday sun is very hard. At night, the sun passes through the clouds, producing diffuse reflection. These rays shoot at the shadow from different angles, making the shadow brighter and the edge blurred. At this time, the sun has become a soft light source.

When shooting indoors, most of them use soft light sources, which is why there are so many soft boxes in the studio.

Understanding reflection is the first step in using light. The next article will explain how to shoot with direct reflection.