The colors of Autumn in Montreal

I was walking around Montreal the other day, a rainy one. All of the sudden the sun managed to come out for a brief moment lighting the trees across the street. I didn't hesitate and took a pic with my iPhone. Sometimes the camera isn't really important: it's all about light.

Stills from film. An analysis and a possible light diagram of a scene from The Man Who wasn't There

Cinematography: Roger Deakins

Camera: Arriflex 535B

Lenses: Cooke S4

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Format: 35mm

Film Stock: Kodak Vision 5277 320T

The Man who wasn't there, by the Coen brothers, is a magnificent job by the great cinematographer Roger Deakins, who shot it on Kodak 5277 film stock, a colour negative with softer and more pastel look now discontinued, and processed it in black and white. In the scene above, the lawyer is explaining to B.B. Thornton and his wife, his new idea to get her out of jail. Deakins used just one light in the scene: a strong HMI placed in the zenith high on a crane as we can see from the very defined shadows. He also used some smoke to make the scene more dramatic. By just using this simple set-up, Deakins achieves the tight atmosphere to enhance the story. The lawyer is speaking about the reality: "there's no what happen: looking at something changes it. Our look defines the reality". Deakins translates this concept into a powerful image. He uses a theatrical light, from above which is like saying: there's no reality, only a representation of reality. Also, light coming from above is related to the divine, the inspiration: the lawyer has the idea, he is the only one bathed in light and well defined as silhouette. Light is the Word, the Truth, shadows are ignorance, not-to-know; that's why all other subjects are left in half shadow. The only character left entirely in shadows is B.B. Thornton; light is Good, shadows are Evil, the circular form  drown by light  unconsciously reminds it as well: as we know, Thornton is guilty of the crime his wife has been accused of.

Knowing Light. Lighting set-ups (IV)

Missed part III? read it  here.

Let's continue with more light set-ups.

Rim Lighting. If the Key light is placed behind the subject only the outline will be illuminated leaving the subject in shadow. It is used to create silhouettes and express a sense of mystery and intrigue in a very artistic way. You can choose to soften the effect by placing a Fill light or a reflector in font of the subject. Rim lighting is very often used in conjunctions with more lights because it helps to separate the subjects from the background and to highlight hair.

Back lighting. When the rim lighting is not that extreme we have a light set-up which is especially used for translucent objects like bottles and glasses. The key light is normally doubled: two lights of equal power are placed on both side of the subject. You can either choose to light directly the subject or bounce the light with a white background. In both cases you have to be careful with light spills: to prevent this you need to use flags and lens hood.

High key lighting. This set-up is characterized for very bright mid tones, intentionally blown highlights and very few shadows. The key light is positioned on one side of the subject at 45º, while the fill light in the opposite side at the same degree. The background has to be white and illuminated by two background lights of the same power.

All these lighting set-ups are really variations of the triangle set-up we seen in this post. These are the basis but you have to feel free to add or remove lights, change positions, directing the subject towards one light or another and move around: you'll see how light and its effects change by doing so. This is the best way of learning to master light: practise and experiment.

Know light. Use of natural light indoor

If you are shooting indoor you do not always need  artificial light to expose your pictures: you can do a magnificent job using just available natural light. You just need a room with a window and sun light, of course.  You could use the window as a back (or rim) light to create a silhouette of your subject or you can move around and use it as side light: depending on if you expose for the mid-tones or the brighter side of the subjects, you'll get different results.

A reflector or a white board might be very helpful: it's perfect to bounce and soften the light to create a more delicate mood or to fill up shadows; but be careful with the kind of white you are using! some materials, for its composition or the way they have been washed, produce ultraviolet light, resulting in a blue cast in the image. Depending on where the reflector is positioned it will create a different atmosphere. If it is held in a higher position, imitating the sun,  the look will be very natural, if it is held down bouncing up the light, it will create a more artistic effect.

I prefer using north light when shooting indoor because it's softer and I don't have to deal with heavy deep shadows; however there are situations when direct sunlight is more suitable: when you want to play with high contrast or with shadows of the window drawn on the subject, for example.

As always, the key of photographing indoor with natural light is to stay creative: you have to move around, not only to get the best composition, but to see how the characteristics of light change; you have to play with light and shadow, stay alert and take advantage of opportunities: a single ray of light passing through a window slightly ajar it's enough to shoot a stunning image.

Know Light. Colour temperature. What it is and how to use it.

Why do my photos sometimes have an horrible blue or orange cast? What does that K stand for on my digital camera? If you are asking  these questions you probably should want to know about Colour Temperature. So let's get to it!

Light is an electro-magnetic radiation which carries energy; one of it characteristic is frequency which is translated by our brain in colour. Different frequencies produce different colours. The higher the frequency is, the higher the energy and bluer the colour. Colour temperature is the scale on which this energy is measured and unit measure is the Kelvin degree (K). The colour temperature depends on the heating temperature of a metallic incandescent light, from red, which needs the lowest temperature, through the orange, white and up to blue (highest temperature).

Normal daylight has a temperature of 5500K and we associate it with white light; a lower temperature energy measures, for example, 2000K so the light will be red; on the other hand if the temperature of the energy goes higher than 5500K, the light will turn blue. 

This is what you need to remember in spite of the confusion common terminology may cause by referring to red or orange light as warm and to blue light as cold (because it is not related to the temperature but to the psychological effect of the colours).

Why should you know this? to avoid a colour cast when taking picture in certain conditions. If you are using a daylight balance film or the sunny setting in a digital camera you will be correctly shooting  coloured images at 5500K, typical of a midday sunlight or a flash. If the colour temperature rises (or lowers) and you not balance accordingly, your images will have a blue cast (or a orange one): when taking pictures during an overcast day, for instance, your images will turn out with a bluish tone; when taking pictures inside a house or a restaurant they will be reddish. 

To avoid this you need to white balance your camera, if you are shooting digital, by changing the setting accordingly (from the sunny setting to the cloud one, for example), or manually choosing the colour temperature in kelvin degrees, or as well doing a personalized white balance photographing a white paper or using an expo-disc. If you are a film camera user using a daylight balanced film, you can remove the colour cast by using filters: 81 and 85 series will remove blue tones, 82 and 85 series will remove orange tones.

But you do not always want to remove a colour tone. One of the function of the light, and in my opinion the most important, is to create a mood to enhance the message of the image: would you correct the orange and red tones in a picture of a sunset ? Therefore you can create a warm and familiar feeling by adding orange tones, while blue cast is related to feelings of cold and distance. The use of psychological effects of the colours is another very interesting theme which we will discuss in next posts. stay tuned!

Knowing Light. Natural light. How to use it in photography

Natural light is the most powerful and highest quality light we have to photograph yet it is the less controllable. It is normally divided into good light and bad light; this division is normally made by bad or inexpert photographers. There`s no such thing as bad light: light is always good, it's up to you to make the best use of it. Light has two functions: making possible the chemical or electronic process of recording an image on a film or a digital sensor and, which is most important, creating a mood to communicate something. So we should talk about adequate or not adequate light (for example, don't shoot a very romantic scene at noon in summer).

As the sun moves throughout the day the light changes its characteristics as its qualities depends on more factors: the quality of the air, the presence of clouds, the pollution and the soil. The early morning offers a very good bright light because the air is neat and clear, there`s lot of contrast and pronounced shadows. The afternoon light is similar but the air is not that clean so light isn't as bright as it is in the morning. As the sunset is approaching the light will turn in a very short period of time from white to pinky end then to a varieties of orange and red tones. This is the golden light. 

First minutes of sunset (Kodak Portra)

On the other side of the sun the sky will be deep blue and when the sun disappear the blue tone of the light will take over. You have to bear this in mind if you are a film camera user or you are photographing a subject lit from the orange tones of the dusking sun on one side and the blue cast of the sky from the opposite. 

Last minutes of sunset (KodalPortra)

At midday the sun is at its highest point: the colours are more saturated, the skin tone is brighter and shadows are very visible and defined (think about the ugly shadow below the nose or the eyes). Solutions? The sun will be always positioned in the south (in the northern hemisphere) so it is as easy as changing the relative positions with it, for example having the model with the back at the sun if you are doing portraits. Of course you could fill the shadows with artificial light like a flash, or bouncing the light into the subject with a reflector. Another solution would be finding some shadows and positioning there the model thus the image will result flat and less dramatic. 

Same subject at sunrise (KodakPortra)

It is the same situation of an overcast day: the clouds are like a huge soft-box, diffusing  light, lowering contrast, flatting  colours but eliminating shadows and enhancing details. But natural light is not the one which comes directly from the sun, it can be reflected from the sky for example. This is what they call the north light (or the south light, depending on in which part of the globe you are reading this blog), a soft and delicate shadow free light.   

Land can work as a reflector too: think of the snow in a mountain or the wet sand of a beach in low tide.   

Other things to remember when shooting with natural light are haze and rain. The first one  makes lines and forms fade out; you need a skyline filter or polarize to get rid of it or, if you are shooting on black and white, a yellow filter. The rain will help with the saturation: it clears the atmosphere so, after raining, colours will look brighter.

You now have all what you need to master natural light so go out there and start practising!

Knowing light. Types of light. An introduction

Almost all of the literature about light starts explaining what light is.

Honestly, as a photographer, I don't really care if light is made of an emission of particles or an emission of waves. What I do care of is the quality of light and its intensity. By the quality of light we can achieve better looking images, a suitable colour rendering index (CRI) and colour appearance (colour temperature) for the mood; playing with its intensity we can achieve the correct exposure (I mean for correct the exposure we want).

Light can be either natural (the sun) or man-made (light generator) provided directly from its source or indirectly (bounced).

Natural light, the golden hour

Artificial light can be divided into incandescent lamps (mercury vapour lamps, Tungsten, PAR 64), discharge lamps (fluorescent lamps, metal halide lamps HMI) and LEDs. Natural light can also be divided into categories, not only in harsh and soft light but also in north light, morning light and afternoon light, golden hour and blue hour...

Each and every one of these types of light produces different results in the emulsion or in the digital pixels. During the next posts we will analyze all these types of light one by one to see those differences and how to use them for our benefit.

So stay tuned!

A brand new blog about light, photography and cinematography is born

Fiat Lux!

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog!

I'm Donatello, a professional photographer and cinematographer actually living in Barcelona.

This blog will focus on light in all its forms and use in photography, as well as in cinematography, and will go through different light techniques because mastering light is important in visual art: light is what shapes objects, gives them form or texture, makes them three-dimensional, and endows them with feelings and moods. I don't shoot subjects, I shoot light.

A Lux (which means light in Latin) is the unit of illuminance, a way of measuring light and its intensity: it measures the quantity of the energy passing through a surface or hitting it. One thousand lux is the average illuminance of a surface illuminated by an overcast day or a typical Tv studio light setting.

My aim with this blog is to share with you my knowledge about light and photography: I'll explain photos through its light setting, how to light different subjects, how to use the power of natural light, how exposure works but also I will be writing about film developing and RAW processing techniques, tips for photography and video, I will analyze movies focusing only on the cinematography aspect and lots of more stuff.

So keep reading!

Bye for now, May the good light be with you!