Exercise: Light through the day

This exercise, which I prefer to call "dawn to dusk" was something of a marathon.  I started part 4 of TAOP at the beginning of April and then realised that I was running out of time in which to shoot this sequence.  First of all, the sequence required fine sunny weather and I have ended up with a composite some two weeks apart as the first day clouded over in the afternoon and nothing was happening in terms of colour or quality of light.  Then, the weather at weekends simply did not co-operate, but I have put a sequence together which illustrates the changes in light from pre-sunrise to dusk.

The exercise called for around 12 images; I certainly shot a lot more and present more here as, particularly at the beginning and the end of the day, the light was changing very quickly.  I chose to photograph the scene, which included the Church of St Peter and St Paul, with Black Notley Hall farm and outbuildings in the background.  The camera faced South (approximately) with the church on the left and in the back ground Black Notley Hall and outbuildings.  Those to the right were perfectly positioned to catch the sun in the morning and the church was doing the same in the evening.

Throughout the sequence I kept the WB setting at daylight in order to have a constant setting, providing me with a clearer view of how the light changed through time.

Whilst I recorded the shooting information, I am not including it here, suffice to say that all images were shot at ISO 100 and the exposures ranged from 30 seconds at f/8 through to 1/350 at f/11.  I am presenting the images below as sets of 5, with a 'lead' photograph so that  the differences may be more easily appreciated on the blog.  They are arranged in time sequence from top and then left to right.

Early morning

My sequence started at 5 in the morning, and it was clear that the light was beginning to change quite quickly at this time of the day.

The sun rises

Here, as the sun rises, the blueness is diminishing and the light is now being reflected in the outhouses on the right.

To midday and beyond

Church goers got in the way slightly, but the blue skies of the early morning have now been replaced by the white light around the middle of the day.  The clouds which can be seen forming in the last shot of this sequence were to prevent any more meaningful work that day.

Into early evening

Two weeks later and there are leaves on the tree!  As the sun moves to the West, it is now illuminating the North facing side of the church.  A very yellow / orange light around 7-8pm, then with a transition into blue as the sun starts falling below the horizon.  On that day, I would look at 7-8pm as being the golden hour, with this lovely warm light and well defined shadows from the low angle of the sun.

Towards the end of daylight

The blueness of the night descends on the scene, and as darkness falls, it becomes easy to see the lights coming from inside the church.

The atmospheric conditions on the days when I took this sequence, did not provide spectacular sunrises or sunsets, so the colours are somewhat less dramatic.  Nevertheless there is a clear transition from the blue of the early dawn, through some early morning yellow as the suns glow picks out some buildings, through to the white light at midday and then the reverse occurring as the day goes into the afternoon and then evening and night.

Albert Watson

This photographer's name came up at the weekend.  I had to admit to not having heard of him and hung my head in shame.  There are simply too many photographers out there.  The reason his name was mentioned was because he was a master of using a single light as a source in the studio.  This gives great drama and high contrast.


The Wikipedia entry tells me that Albert Watson was born in 1942 in Scotland.  He is well known (except by me) for his fashion, celebrity and art photography.  In his fashion work he has shot over 200 covers of Vogue around the world and 40 covers of Rolling Stone magazine since the mid-70s.  Photo District News named Watson as one of the 20 most influential photographers of all time, along with Richard Avedon and Irving Penn.

The best way to introduce his work is through a video I found on YouTube, produced by Phaidon Press.  It is titled Albert Watson reflections, London 2010 on the occasion of his being awarded the RPS' Centenary Medal in September of that year.

Albert Watson reflections, London 2010

There is also an excellent website which is a showcase for his photographs and it can be found at:

Albert Watson website

Looking at his images I have selected a few to illustrate some aspects of his use of light.  Interestingly, he mentions this in his reflections in the video.

In the photograph of Steve Jobs below, looking just at the lighting on the subject, it appears to be a single light , say at 45 deg to the left and above the camera position.  This type of lighting gives both form and texture and is accepted by the viewer because it mimics the outdoor world, where there is a single light source called the sun!

Steve Jobs

This is a very clean, and 'standard' portrait, using quite a classical approach to lighting.

Moving on to another classical "look" portrait, is that of Uma Thurman.

Uma Thurman

This looks as though just a single light is used, with a snoot. perhaps, to concentrate the light, giving that spot on the face.  I think that the light on the hair and arms is likely, as well, to be from that source.

One of his favourite models, it seems, was Kate Moss and there are several images of her to be easily found in the sources I have used.

Kate Moss

This contrasty image probably used two lights either side of  and above the camera at 45 deg to the subject. I would not normally expect this effect using that setup, which would generally create a flat, shadowless look.  This contrast was possibly achieved  achieved with using oil on Kate Moss' face, creating high reflectance and therefore contrast.  It is certainly not a typical "fashion" shot.

Another Kate Moss image is

Kate Moss

Back to the single light, in this one, I think, to the right of and above the camera at about 45 deg to the subject.  Possibly a light on the backdrop to lighten it.

A photograph which has an interesting story behind it, as told by Watson in his reflections video linked in References, is that of Albert Hitchcock.  Its quite likely that this portrait boosted Watson's career.

Alfred Hitchcock

Again a single light on the subject, above and in line with the camera.  The background appears uniformly lit which suggests a light either side

To me, Albert Watson's work is like looking at a primer on lighting as well as creativity in setting up a portrait.  For my future studio work I shall certainly be taking inspiration from Watson's work.  In "Reflections" he says that he is always learning, trying to do something different each day, to be more creative.  This is something I will aspire to be doing myself.

References:

Facebook Page

Albert Watson website

Albert Watson reflections, London 2010

The World of Photographers

TAOP Part 4: Light

Time to make a start on this part as I have very little time in which to complete part 4.  The introduction to this section in the course manual covers light as "the raw material of photography" and then leads on to "The intensity of light".  Here there is a general discussion of measuring the brightness of light and easily translating it onto a scale which can be used practically to provide the appropriate exposure when taking a photograph.  There is also a brief discussion of sensor sensitivity which is measured in ISO numbers as well as histograms.  These latter two subjects I will expand on further later in this blog.

Measuring Brightness

At this point I reached out for my little-used camera manual to remind myself what metering patterns are available.  Being rather lazy, I generally use what Canon refer to as 'evaluative' metering and this does seem to work well in most circumstances, though when working with speedlights, whether in the home studio or out in the field, I use a hand held meter.  As I have been using hand held meters for some time, I thought that I'd cover those off first.

Hand held meters

First of all, on of the major advantages of using a hand held meter is that it becomes possible to take incident light readings.  Why is this important and when should an incident light reading be taken?  An incident light reading measures the amount of light falling on the subject and this gives an accurate reading to be used in determining exposure.  Such a reading is independent of the texture and colour of the subject, which means that it is not necessary to make adjustments to take those into account.  It is appropriate here to touch on how meters are calibrated, regardless of whether they are internal to a camera or hand-held.  The basic principle which is adopted in metering the brightness of a scene is to reduce it to an 18% reflectance grey card.  This has considerable significance where the subject is predominantly at one or another end of the scale, ie either black or white.  A black surface will cause the meter to calculate an exposure some times up to 2 stops higher than required and a white scene, such as snow goes the other way and causes up to 2 stops  under exposure, giving rise to grey snow scenes.  An incident light reading is independent of these factors so more likely to give you an accurate exposure.

There are practical considerations, however, and it may not be possible to take an incident light reading in most circumstances, so I use it primarily for studio work, whether by flash or other light sources, and also portrait and close up work outdoors.  My first hand held meter was a Weston Master V, which is currently not working, however in doing this research, I discovered a company which repairs these meters, so I may well do so.  What did it look like, well, somewhat like this:

The white plastic attachment seen in this photo is called an "invercone" and it fitted over the area where the selenium cell receptor was located.  This is shown in the photo below.  Using the invercone was how incident light was measured.  Reflected light measurements were made without this attachment, pointing the receptor directly at the subject.

The hand held meter which I currently use is an Sekonic Flashmate L-308S, which is shown below:

The digital display and multiple functions, make this a very versatile tool despite being one of the cheaper models.  In the picture above, the white area is a "lumisphere" which is used for taking incident light readings in the same way as the Weston.  The main advantage of this type of lightmeter is its ability to take readings of flash output.

For metering small areas, referred to as spot-metering, I recall using at college a Pentax Spotmeter V which looked like this:



A rather strange device which incorporated a viewfinder which you used to find the "spot" you wished to meter.

In-camera metering

Reading the manual for my camera, the Canon EOS 5D mark II, I find the following on a page describing the Metering Mode:

Not a wonderful scan on my part, but it illustrates the point.  There are 4 metering modes, all with specific attributes, well described in the illustration.  I have a tendency to use the default which is the evaluative mode, but this is not necessarily the most appropriate in all circumstances.  Having said that, it all depends on how much you get to know your camera.  In theory, partial and spot metering will provide the best exposure values where you are looking to apply your own compensation, for the scene.  Evaluative does many calculations across a number of zones and it could well be applying compensation, so adjusting further may not make much sense.

As the course text suggests, different scenes require different treatment and an understanding of how the metering works in the specific camera in use so that appropriate compensation, if any is required, can be applied at the time of taking the image.