Lighting Importance Can`t Be Overlooked

October 03, 1986|By Gary Haynes, Knight-Ridder Newspapers.

Light is an important element in establishing a mood in photographs. Control of light is a technical as well as a compositional skill, and the use of light is one of the photographer`s creative tools.

Outdoors, the photographer can control light by changing camera angle, carefully regulating exposure, supplementing sunlight with fill light or simply waiting for a more appropriate time to shoot the picture.

Indoors, photographers have more control the intensity, direction and duration of the light source for their pictures.

A photographer can gain an understanding of light and what can and cannot be done with it by shooting pictures under a variety of conditions and studying the results. One way to examine the effect of sunlight through the course of a day is to select a familar scene to photograph at different times of the day and on days when the weather varies.

Photographers should understand how light affects the film they choose. All photographic film has a limit to the range of contrast it can record. Expose for highlights--the brightest element in a picture--and there is a limit to how much detail will be recorded in dark shadows; expose for detail in the shadows, and any bright highlights will be so overexposed that it will be impossible to print the negatives.

Contrast is a particular problem outdoors at midday when the sun is high overhead. Direct midday sun produces extreme contrasts, ``hot`` highlights and black shadows, extremes too great for film to record.

Photograph someone at that time and the face is likely to have black

``holes`` where eyes should be, a not especially flattering result.

The simplest way to reduce contrast outdoors is to move the subject into the shade. It is also possible to use a reflector to fill the shadows. When photographing a person, even a small sheet of white paper held just out of camera range, reflecting light into the dark shadows, can make a big difference.

Sunlight is infinitely variable in the course of a day, even if the sky is cloudless. In the early morning and late evening it is ``warm,`` a mellow reddish-golden, because it shines at an oblique angle with its rays passing through more of Earth`s atmosphere. Dawn and dusk, when the sky has darkened and further enhanced the rich color of the sunlight, are especially good times to make color photographs outdoors.

The late evening light, unlike the early morning light, has a diffused quality because of the heat and haze that have built up during the day. Having diffused sunlight coming from an oblique angle is preferable to having it from high overhead; the angled light is gentler, making it easier to control contrast.

Photographers who regularly make pictures of people outdoors often carry a reflector. Camera stores sell several varieties, including some that fold for easy transport. It is often not necessary that the fill light cover the entire scene, only that it be directed to the central focus of the


Some photographers like to use a flash outdoors for fill light, but it is difficult to assess the intensity and quality of such light. Also, most small flash units are useless outdoors at distances exceeding 6 feet.

Indoors, lighting possibilities are limited only by the photographer`s imagination. If something can be seen, it is possible to photograph it. Available-light pictures, those made with normal interior illumination, have a natural quality. Because normal lighting is dimmer than sunlight or photoflood or flash, the photographer needs a fast film and a wide-aperture lens. The 35 mm. shooter can use high-speed negative color film and get pleasing results under almost any circumstances.

If a meter reading indicates that even the fast film-large opening combination is inadequate for the exposure, try moving the light source closer to the subject. That way, you expose for the brighter parts of a scene.