Photographic Lighting: Reading material

There are a huge number of books dedicated to this subject and I just don't know where the market is! I had acquired a couple of such books many years ago, and though they might be outdated and the poses / dress might not be particularly fashionable, they do provide some sound information regarding basic lighting setups which are equally applicable whether you use tungsten, studio flash or portable flash such as Speedlites.  In my case, I use Speedlites.

The first book I wish to refer to is "How to control & use Photographic Lighting" by David Brooks.  My copy from the early 1980's was published by HP Books, and searching for the title revealed that it was updated in 1989.

The early chapters discuss the effects of the light source and the light direction and reflection.  Very relevant and helpful for this part of the TAOP module as it supplements and enlarges on the course text.  The description is clear and helpfully illustrated.  The chapter relating to equipment is very dated, and whilst principles are fine, its probably best ignored as far more information can be obtained from other sources.  There is an extensive chapter on photographing people.  This I find a very useful starting point for a variety of lighting situations and complexities including natural, window, light.  All are well illustrated with lighting diagrams and resulting images.  The final chapter discusses lighting for "things".  Again well illustrated and extremely useful as a starting point.  Shooting glass and shiny objects are both subjects which are well dealt with.  Overall a useful book which can be acquired quite cheaply.

My next book is "50 Portrait lighting techniques for pictures that sell" by John Hart published by Amphoto.

Again my copy is from from 1983, but it was updated in 1995 and that copy is available from Amazon for £0.01 used.  That would be a tremendous buy.  This is clearly outdated, but as with the previous book, it is a good starting point for "50" different lighting setups which are well discussed and illustrated, both with photos and lighting diagrams.  There is nothing, here, though, which hasn't really been covered by the previous tome.  The message is, that a well executed and lit portrait will succeed in its aim.

At a photo exhibition a few years ago, I succumbed to obtaining "Portrait Photography Secrets of Posing & Lighting" by Mark Cleghorn and published by Lark Books.  I had just been watching him demonstrating various lighting techniques and the book was on special offer :-).  Mark Cleghorn is a Fellow of RPS and has many other distinctions and awards.  He certainly knows his stuff as I saw from his demonstrations.  The book runs through many styles and techniques and will provide the basic knowledge and inspiration to get going with taking portraits.

Studio work is something which I am interested in, particularly as the lighting is under your control, so the challenge is really how to use it in a creative way.

Alongside the books above there are the technical manuals which come with the kit.  In my case the Speedlites 580EX and 430EX II and the Nissin Di866 II.  It is definitely worth reading these if for no other reason than to become familiar with the controls.

What I have found is that, other than to become familiar with the subject, there is no substitute for practice.

OCA Study visit to the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2013

This visit was led by Sharon Boothroyd and Simon Barber who, after giving us all ample time to view the exhibition, then led us in discussion about what we had seen, in terms of the bodies of work and whether they had a place in the competition in the first instance.

The stated objectives were:

• gain a personal perspective on the work of the shortlisted photographers;
• reflect on the experience of seeing photography in a gallery and the nature of photography competitions; and
• network with other OCA students.

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize rewards a "living photographer for a specific body of work in an exhibition or publication format, which has significantly contributed to photography in Europe in the previous year".  There were 4 finalists at the exhibition:

• Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin;
• Mishka Henner;
• Chris Killip; and
• Cristina De Middel.

I later learned that Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin had won the prize and were presented with the award on 10 June.

My biggest challenge about this exhibition is the differing interpretation of contemporary photography.  I will look at each indivuidually.

War Primer 2 - Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin

This work takes the original War Primer publication of 1955 by Bertoit Brecht and superimposes on it photographs obtained from the internet to create a comment in relation to the "war on terror".  An example of this is:

The colour photo from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is taken from a presentation by Philip Zimbardo on how ordinaryu people can, under the right circumstances, become evil.  http://technoccult.net/archives/2008/02/28/good-people-do-bad-things/

In the exhibition, each new, found, image is listed with the link to the source.  The book, and there are multiple copies, each turned to a different page, are presented in individual cases and the whole is more of an installation rather than an exhibition of photographs.

Is this contemporary photography?  It is certainly a collection of photographs old and new, and as a whole, the work replicates that done by Brecht in the first place, who himself obtained these poor quality images from newspapers and similar sources.  It is not an exhibition of photographs by a photographer, rather it follows the way that the internet is used by many to find and then pass on photographs which are of interest to them.  Another message which is put across here is that photographs have a currency or value, once taken, as they circulate around the world.  It is these which make this contemporary photography, no longer a photographer, rather the images speak for themselves.

No Man's Land - Mishka Henner

This work is far more challenging, as here we have a collection of images obtained from Google Street View (GSV).  It is not the first time this has been done, for example Michael Wolf makes use of such imagery and has published a book using these - "a series of unfortunate events".  Here Henner has done considerable research in regard to his theme, that of sex workers.  I was surprised, though should not have been, that a database of sex workers with GPS co-ordinates exist.  Using this as a basis, Henner selected images from GSV for his work.  The project is multi-media and includes a soundtrack, which I did not hear, of bird recordings.

Henner had previously collated definitions of Photography and published over 3,000 such phrases in a book, "Photography Is" (2010) - http://www.mishkahenner.com/Photography-Is. If one takes the definition of photography as a collection of photographs, then "No Man's Land" certainly works with that.

What surprised me was that these images do have basic compositional design attributes and one or two which I have seen would not be out of place in a fashion shoot.

Is this contemporary photography?  It is more the usage of photography, than the images themselves.  In a traditional approach to this social subject, the images would convey an interaction between the photographer and the subject.  In this case, they are distanced through this automated process.  It is certainly an interesting approach, and given a suitable project, I might make use of such found images.  One question which bothers me, would there be copyright infringement? Do these have creative commons?

Postcards from the edge - Chris Killip's Britain

Seeing these gave me the most comfort.  Here we have a collection of beautifully printed and present documentary photographs.  However, what are they doing here, after all they were taken between 1970 and 1990.  He was nominated for the LE BAL exhibition which originated in Germany.  The exhibitions have been curated and the one in The Photographer's Gallery is a smaller body of work focusing on the community and work.  It excludes some popular images, for example the picture of the head banging punks from a miners' dance.

I am reminded by a similar work, Homecoming, by Don McCullin, which also looks at social issues in Britain.  This is a retrospective, but it does remind one that powerful black and white images have a place in contemporary photography.

The Afronauts - Cristina de Middel

This started off as a book and has subsequently become a body of work which is hung.  It looks at the Zambian space programme which was started there when Zambia gained independence in 1964.  de Middel has put in an enormous amount of work in making all the props and costumes for the photographs which she took.  I feel that this is also a bit tongue in cheek, but there is substance behind all of this, illustrated by contemporary newspaper articles alongside the modern illustrations.  

There is a folkloric feel to this, in particular as some of the costumes and props have an African feel to them.  Typical of these is the image below.

As a body of work, this tells tells a fantastical story which is expanded through the use of sketches and original documents.  Is this representative of contemporary photography?  I feel that it is the aspect of self-publication as a book which is the key to this.  A body of work can be published by the photographer without the need to go to a publishing house and it is certainly a growing trend in photography.

References

Cristina de Middel

Chris Killip

Mishka Henner

Broomberg & Chanarin

Exercise: Outdoors at night

The purpose of this exercise is to show a range of different lighting situations at night.  These differ from panoramic cityscapes to narrow streets lit by yellow sodium lamps and brightly lit interiors.  Most of my images have been handheld, particularly those out on the streets.

ISO 1600, f/8, 1/8 sec

 I rather liked this shop window with a spotlight on the decanter.  As with all of these night time shots, I preferred to use Auto WB, shooting in RAW and correcting, if required, afterwards.  This is very much based on the work done in prior exercises where I found that AWB did a very good job.

ISO 3200, f/4.0, 1/30 sec

Above is an example of yellow sodium street lights, giving that very yellow cast.  AWB has resulted in a colour temp of 3600K, and it is pretty reasonable as the sodium light is very yellow.

ISO 200, f/5.6, 30 sec

Something very different, a long exposure of 30 seconds enabled multiple 'firings' to be captured at a firework display on my local airfield.

ISO 200, f/16, 15 sec

Trying a different approach to a photo of a lit fountain and some background lights. Here I moved the camera in the vertical to create this abstract.

ISO 1600, f/22, 2 sec

Here I was experimenting with shooting lights from a moving car.  It has worked to an extent, and given the opportunity, I will pursue this further.

ISO 200, f/11, 20 sec

Here I have a Vampire trainer starting up at night under floodlights.  Gauging the exposure involved some guesswork, as well as when to fire the shutter, since the flames only occur at start-up, so this was a once only opportunity.  I feel that this was quite successful.

ISO 200, f/11, 15 sec

A Douglas Skyraider aircraft running under floodlights.  Here I wanted to capture the yellow painted tips of the propeller creating a disk around the hub.

ISO 1600, f/4, 1/30 sec

Somerset House under white floodlights.  Here I corrected the perspective from the original in Lightroom 5 using its Auto feature for this.  The original is below.  A pretty impressive result, though inevitably some cropping was required.

ISO 3200, f/4, 1/30 sec

A walkway adjacent to Somerset House was painted with this tremendous blue light, was just asking to be photographed.

ISO 3200, f/4.5, 1/20 sec

A more traditional view of London at night.  I have given it a panoramic crop in order to remove the undesired empty space top and bottom.

ISO 3200 f/4.5, 1/20 sec

Finally, lights on London's South Bank, illuminating the Hayward Gallery an surrounding walkways.

Alexa Meade: Milk

I came across this work by Alexa Meade quite by accident and it had really aroused my curiosity.  The end result is a photograph, but it is the performance, if it can be called that, which matters.  She describes herself on her facebook page as an artist who paints directly on her subjects so that the perception is that of a 3D subject which has been compressed into a 2D space.  The result is extremely effective if somewhat disturbing in some images.

Returning to "Milk", the actual title of the work is: "MILK: what will you make of me?" and is a collaboration between Alexa Meade and Sheila Vand.  The first of the references below, links to a site which fully describes this project, complete with behind the scenes photographs and video.  Curiously this performance, because that what it is in my mind, was repeated at the Galerie Ivo Kamm in Zurich.

Preparation of the canvas

To me, Alexa Meade has taken the concept of flattening a 3D subject into 2D one stage further, with the impact of the milk filled bath, ever changing.  It is this which also, when photographed, demonstrates snapshots in time, which can never be repeated in their detail.  Whilst the concept is repeatable, the detail is not, as the paint works its way into the milk and the slight movements by the performer create unique patterns in time.  Recording these using a stills camera captures those moments, though I hesitate to go so far as those being decisive moments in the Cartier Bresson mould. The performance has a very short lifespan as the moment the subject is submerged in the milk, the paint and the milk morphs and continues to change

The way that the subject blends in with the canvas is the key to the dimensional flattening which is well illustrated in the video at Alexa Sheila Video.

There is a series of black and white images which, to me, become almost like line drawings.  The lighting used contributes to the flattening effect as there very little shadow other than that which has been painted in by the artist.

The main web site at http://alexameade.com/ is worth looking at as this gives an insight into other works done by Alexa Meade, all of which are incredibly striking.

References:

Milk: Alexa Meade and Sheila Vand
Alexa Meade Facebook
Huffington Post
Alexa Meade web site

Exercise: Tungsten and fluorescent lighting

Tungsten and fluorescent lighting prove to be particularly challenging, especially fluorescent which has a narrow colour spectrum.  Tungsten lighting, in a domestic and commercial environment, is now less common, and has not been available to the consumer for several years, at least in the UK.

I tried to make sense of what colour temperature settings should one be using with this type of lighting, including the Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL), as I have always experienced difficulty, particularly with the strong colour casts on photographs taken under fluorescent lights.  I was also interested, going forward, what will be happening with regard to LED lighting, as, looking at the manufacturers' websites, such as Philips and Osram, LED lighting appears to be the product which ultimately will replace Fluorescent or CFL as well as incandescent light sources such as Halogen bulbs.

Wikipedia was my first stop and, though not helpful for incandescent lighting, the entry for fluorescent lighting was much more revealing.  This told me that typical incandescent lighting, which is yellowish-white would have a colour temperature of 2,700K.  This is near enough for my purposes to 2,850K which is the temperature given for Tungsten in Lightroom.  However, Canon uses 3,200K as its setting for Tungsten light.  I refer to Canon, as I use Canon cameras.

Fluorescent is much more complex as its colour temperature can vary considerably due to the mixture of phosphors which the manufacturer has used inside the tube in order to achieve a given effect.  Here the range can be from 2,700K through to 6,500K.  This is supported by looking at, say, the Osram catalogue.

Lightroom gives the Fluorescent setting as 3,800K and Canon is a close match at 4,000K.  I find that, many Fluorescent light sources emit a greenish light and it is this which causes the greatest difficult in achieving a natural colour rendition.  It is interesting to note that Lightroom also a +21 Magenta tint for Fluorescent, clearly intended to counter this greenish hue.  The Osram web site tells me that Fluorescent bulbs are  available in three "light colours".  These are:

• warm white, below 3,300K
• neutral white, 3,300 - 5,000K; and
• daylight white, >5,000K.

Seeing these figures it is little wonder that I struggle with colour when shooting under Fluorescent light, due to the range of tubes available.

Looking in more detail at CFL's, I read on the Osram web site, that these are rated as being around 2,500 - 2,700K

Turning to the exercise, it is in two parts; the first asks you to compose a photograph in which both the interior lit by tungsten lamps and the exterior at dusk are both visible.  Three photographs are then to be taken with the WB set to Auto, daylight and tungsten.  The second part is to take photographs in two different interiors, setting WB to Auto and then to fluorescent.

Part 1:  Tungsten

As the light levels were very low, I have used ISO1600 throughout in order to enable me to hand hold the camera.

Auto WB

ISO 1600, f/4, 1/45 sec

The image appears pretty close to how I saw the scene, with a distinct orange / yellow cast arising from the tungsten light.  Clearly the overhead light is not tungsten as it does not give out that yellow light, but, looking at the bulbs, I cannot tell what they are, possibly CFL.

Daylight WB

ISO 1600, f/4, 1/45 sec

This has a distinct yellow cast, which is not surprising as the daylight setting in camera is 5,200K and the scene is lit by a tungsten light at, using the Canon setting, 3,200K.  3,200K is at the yellow end of the spectrum, hence the strong orange / yellow cast.  I would not recommend using this setting indoors.

Tungsten WB

ISO 1600, f/4, 1/45 sec

This photograph comes closest to the colours in the scene, so in this case the tungsten WB setting in camera is certainly the one to use.

In summary, the daylight WB setting is the least accurate, with the tungsten WB setting being the most accurate.  There is not much to choose between tungsten WB and Auto WB, the latter giving quite an acceptable rendition of the scene.

Part 2: Fluorescent

My choice for this was Jubilee Line station at Canary Wharf and the National Theatre on the South Bank.  I suspected that in both cases fluorescent lighting would be used, but could not be certain.

Canary Wharf Auto WB

ISO 3200, f/6.7, 1/30 sec

Auto WB appears to be coping with the lighting pretty well and this image appears to be reasonably accurate.

Canary Wharf Fluorescent WB

ISO 3200, f/4.5, 1/60 sec

To me, this looks a touch green, so the Auto WB setting has done this much better.  Examining the settings, the Auto WB had an extra +10 Magenta tint which can explain this.

Canary Wharf Daylight WB

ISO 3200, f/6.7,  1/30 sec

For comparison, I took a shot using daylight WB, and here the yellow / green hue is really apparent.

National Theatre Auto WB

ISO 1600, f/5.6, 1/15 sec

I really should have increased the ISO here, but I got away with a handheld shot, though braced, at 1/15 sec.  Again, I have found that the camera's Auto WB setting is coping pretty well with the lighting and has rendered a pretty reasonable result, though there is still just a bit of green visible.

National Theatre Fluorescent WB

ISO 1600, f/5.6, 1/15 sec

Here the green has gone pretty much entirely, so this is the more accurate result.

One thing that I have found in this exercise is that overall, Auto WB copes very well with a variety of conditions, and may need only a small tweak during post-processing.  Understanding the colour changes due to the colour temperature of different lighting helps with that task.  It is, of course, possible to set up a custom white balance in camera for each 'take', however this is time consuming, though there are accessories which provide help with this.

References

Wikipedia - Incandescent light bulb
Wikipedia - Fluorescent lamp
Philips lighting web site
Osram lighting web site
Canon EOS 5D Mark II and EOS 50D manuals

Exercise: Cloudy weather and rain

This exercise looks at the way light changes from clear sunny days through to overcast days and the impact on the image. Many years ago, when I first started taking photographs, the general advice was only to take photographs on sunny days.  This has changed somewhat and photography has become an all weather activity.

Successful photographs do not need to happen just in bright sunlight, in fact that could be detrimental to the result as contrast is likely to be high, the dynamic range of the subject is likely to outside of that which can be successfully captured by the sensor.  When there is a thin layer of cloud, this acts as a giant diffuser or light tent, so whilst  there may not be any shadows and texture may not be as visible, it will be possible to see greater detail which would otherwise be blocked out by the shadows.

There are three parts to this section:

• the same scene in sunlight and cloud;
• overcast; and
• rain

Sunlight and cloud

Here I took advantage of fast moving clouds to capture the same scene under both sunlit and cloudy conditions.  Throughout, the WB was set to daylight.

Top:  Sunlight, ISO 200, f/16, 1/125 sec
Bottom:  Cloud, ISO 200, f/11, 1/125 sec

In the above pair, showing the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich and though there is only one stop difference in exposure, the colour difference is quite marked showing a blue tint to the image.

Left: Sunlight, ISO 100, f/8, 1/250 sec
Right:  Cloud, ISO 100, f/8, 1/90 sec

Again, there is a distinct blueness to the photograph taken in cloudy conditions, with nearly a two stop difference in exposure.

Left:  Sunlight, ISO 100, f/11, 1/250 sec
Right:  Cloud, ISO 100, f/11, 1/60 sec

Photographed in the courtyard in Somerset House, the neutral colour of the stone shows a marked blueness in cloud.  I found it quite a startling change which really was not apparent to me as I took the photograph.  The cloud cover was denser than in the previous photographs in this section and this is reflected in the greater difference in exposure of a full two stops.

In this pair, whilst the sunlight provides the right conditions to show texture, clouds remove this contrast and the strong shadows, revealing more detail in the statue.  This is very much the case in such conditions, as will be further shown in the next section dealing with overcast skies.

Overcast skies

Turning to cloudy and overcast conditions, I consider these to as though there is a huge diffuser between me, the subject and the sun, acting much like a light tent.  The brief calls for three photographs which make use of the shadowless light.  The following photographs demonstrate this.

ISO 400, f/9.5, 1/125 sec

This photograph would have been very difficult to take in full sunshine, with so much gloss varnish!  Here the richness of the colours really show through with minimal reflections.

ISO 400, f/8, 1/60 sec

In this shadowless light, the real detail in this statue and the stonework can be seen.  The subtle green moss / colouring is seen at its best.

ISO 200, f/8, 1/125 sec

Here, again, all the subtle colours of the stones can be seen, as well as the detail of the roots.  It is very likely that in full sunshine, whilst displaying texture the subtlety of the colours and the detail would be lost.

Rain

Generally hated by photographers, after all cameras are not really waterproof, but this can provide plenty of opportunity, not only during the rain, but also after, looking at reflections in puddles and raindrops on surfaces.

ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/180 sec

Stoically enduring the rain, a lone spectator protects her 'territory' at an airshow in early May.  Only in Britain!

ISO 200, f/4.5, 1/80 sec

An abstract effect created by lights shining through a car window during a downpour.  Definitely an opportunistic shot!

ISO 200, f/16, 1/50 sec

 Chairs drying out after a downpour.

ISO 800, f/16, 1/60 sec

A sense of urgency in those legs!

In summary, this was a fun exercise, though finding rain at the right time proved difficult.  From this I have come away with knowing the way colour changes in a cloudy sky, how colours become more saturated in overcast skies and the opportunities there are to be had when it's raining!

Exercise: Variety with a low sun

This exercise was tremendous fun.  I had the foresight (makes a change) to jump to this exercise while still working on part 3 of TAOP.  I went with a group from the RPS Documentary and Visual Journalism (DVJ) group to photograph Brompton Cemetary at the beginning of March.  The lighting was perfect throughout the day; it made a change from constant overcast and rain!  As could be expected on such a day, the cemetary was heaving with photographers and sometimes had to wait to let another photographer take their photo!

The DVJ always has a theme to their outings, in this case the task was to produce either a book or record cover.  My effort is below:

With one exception, I have presented the set for this exercise as B&W as I considered this medium to be most appropriate for the subject matter and would also best illustrate the objectives of this project.  In preparing the final images I have also used Lightroom's B&W filters to generate the look which I desired.

The objective of this exercise is to demonstrate some of the advantages of shooting when the sun is low.  The aim is take a number of photographs to demonstrate the following:

• frontal lighting, with the sun directly behind the camera;
• side lighting, with the sun to the left or right;
• back lighting, shooting towards the light; and
• edge lighting, where the edge of the subject is lit.

Frontal lighting

I find that frontal lighting can make the subject appear very flat and two dimensional, as illustrated in the first of my images below:

ISO 400, f/9.5, 1/250, Blue filter

I had to step to one side in order to avoid my shadow appearing in the image, so it is not quite with the sun behind the camera.

An alternative shot which works better with this lighting is below.

ISO 200, f/4, 1/1500, Orange filter

Nevertheless, this is still somewhat two dimensional, when looking at the detail, much of the impact being due  to my choice of f-stop which has a limited depth of field.

Side lighting

For the first of my images I selected much more of a landscape, rather than a detail shot.  

ISO 400, f/9.5, 1/350, Blue filter

The Collonades which sit atop the catacombs and surround the 'Great Circle' in the cemetery are a dramatic feature.Here the side lighting, enhanced by the use of the blue filter, brings drama to the scene.  The blue filter also enabled me to retain the brick detail in the highlights.

This led me to consider another use of side lighting, that of using the shadows and highlights themselves to create the design.

ISO 400, f/19, 1/125, Blue filter

Again in the Collonades, this time observing the pattern created by the low sun.

One use of side lighting, which I like particularly, is to bring out the surface detail of an object and this is illustrated below.

ISO 200, f/2.8, 1/1000, Orange filter

Here the texture of the roughly hewn cross is enhanced by through side lighting.

Back lighting

Shooting towards the light, typically creates a silhouette where the shape of the object / subject is clearly seen.  This I have demonstrated in the shot below:

ISO 200, f/4, 1/4000, Yellow filter

In order to avoid lens flare, I positioned the sun behind the cross, and exposed, overall, for the sky, which I further darkened using a yellow filter.

The following image is the only one in the set which is in colour, but this is to demonstrate another feature of back-lighting.

ISO 200, f/4, 1/2000

Here, I have used back-lighting to enable the glow of the yellow leaves, against the backdrop of the crosses, by having the light shining through them.

Edge lighting

With the subject back-lit, the object here is to create a rim light effect around the subject.  This is not the easiest lighting to show as lens flare becomes a problem.

ISO 400, f/11, 1/90, Blue filter

 The effect here is to isolate the subject from the background.

ISO 200, f/2.8, 1/500, Blue filter

Again, the cross is further removed from the background by the rim of light outlining its left side.

Use of low light proves extremely fruitful in providing drama as well as giving a greater degree of form and texture to the subject.  This is certainly an aspect which I have enjoyed demonstrating.