Use a combination of quality, contrast, direction and colour to light an object in order to reveal its form. For this exercise, we recommend that you choose a natural or organic object such as an egg or stone rather than a man-made object. Man-made or cultural artefacts
can be fascinating to light but they’re already authored to some degree, which requires interpretation by the photographer; this exercise is just about controlling the light to reveal form.

You don’t need a studio light for this exercise; a desk lamp or even window light will be fine, although a camera flash that you can use remotely is a useful tool. The only proviso is that you can control the way the light falls on the subject.

Take some time to set up the shot. If you’re shooting an egg, you should think about emptying it first so that it will stand up. This is really a topic for advanced students at Level 3 but you may get some help from Google. The background for your subject will be crucial. For a smallish object, you can tape a large sheet of paper or card to the wall as an ‘infinity curve’ which you can mask off from the main light source by pieces of card. You don’t need to use a curve if you can manage the ‘horizon line’ effectively – the line where the surface meets background. Taking a high viewpoint will make the surface the background, in which case the surface you choose will be important to the shot.

Exposure times will be much longer than you’re used to (unless you’re using flash) and metering and focusing will be challenging. The key to success is to keep it simple. The important thing is to aim for four or five unique shots – either change the viewpoint, the subject or the lighting for each shot.

Add the sequence to your learning log. Draw a simple lighting diagram for each of your shots showing the position of the camera, the subject and the direction of the key light and fill. Don’t labour the diagrams; quick sketches with notes will be just as useful as perfect graphics.

Before starting this exercise I looked at the work of John Baptiste Huynh as referenced in the student handbook.
Born in 1966 in France John Baptiste Huynh taught himself printing and lighting techniques.
The first thing that struck me about his images was that bright, strong light does not have to be hard light! This was, for me, a huge lesson! I have been shying away from using strong light in so many situations because I didn’t want harsh shadows and highlights! It didn’t occur to me that I could have both bright and soft light (Fig.1). By using a large soft box close to his subjects he achieved a soft wraparound effect. Using a large soft box also helped reduce the appearance of sharp reflective highlights on surfaces such as those in Fig. 2. The strip of vertical light gives the brush handle form and depth without losing the softness of the image. This is also evident in Fig.4.

This soft and bright light was not only evident in his portraits of people, but in his other works as well (Fig.2-4).

Irving Penn:
Born in the US in 1917, Irving Penn was both a painter and photographer. He often created images using natural light as his only light source. He used plain backgrounds and kept away from props, keeping his images simple. In many of his images the background looks like a generic background from a painted portrait (Fig.5). His images often have higher contrast than those of Huynh and therefore tend to have a more dramatic look and feel.

Whilst setting up a light box on a glass table, I noticed that a circular opening in the top of the light box was combining with a ceiling light above to create a circular pool of light. I decided to use an onion as my subject, and so placed it in the pool of light to see what kind of image it would produce (Img. 1). Camera set to manual with white balance on Auto.
As an experiment, I took a series of shots with different white balance settings (Img.1 – 7).

Image 1 :
Using Auto white balance seemed the best setting in relation to what I was actually seeing. The circle of light is fairly white with the unlit area around it appearing quite grey by comparison.

Image 2:
Using Tungsten white balance, the image has a blue/green cast.

Image 3:
Using Fluorescent white balance gave what looks like a pink/lilc cast.

Image 4:
Using direct sunlight white balance gave a pale yellow warm cast.

Image 5:
Using flash white balance resulted in a stronger brighter yellow/orange cast than image 4.

Image 6:
Using cloudy white balance also resulted in a warm yellow/orange cast which is a bit more evident than the sunlight setting.

Image 7:
Using white shade balance produced the warmest image, with a strong yellow/orange cast

Placing them side by side as thumbnails help reveal the differences. I decided to keep white balance to Auto for the remainder of this exercise as it seems to be doing a good job.

I hadn’t compared white balance in such detail before for a single subject, and was fascinated by the differences. This might be something to look at in more detail at a later date.

Looking at the other aspects of the lighting, the shadow isn’t too strong under the subject but enough to show depth and form. The direction of the light hitting the subject allows for some shadow around the outer layer giving a bit of texture.

Set up for images 1-7

In the next shot I used a main light situated low and directed across the subject from the side. There was a bit of natural light coming from the opposite window but it was late in the day so it wasn’t bright (Img. 8). This produced an image with high contrast, strong highlights and deeper shadows (Img .8).

Setup for image 8.

I decided to try and even out the contrast without losing the texture and form. I placed a piece of A4 size white paper on the other side of the subject to bounce some of the light coming from the right hand side back onto the left of the onion (Img.9). I was really pleased at how this turned out, although there is still a very bright area on the right of the subject, placing the paper on the left has reduced the contrast without losing form.

Setup for image 9

In the next shot I used a white diffuser positioned close to the main light coming from the right, to try and reduce the bright area on the right of the subject (Img.10). It helped a bit, but not as much as I would have liked. I then added the white A4 paper reflector as used in image 9, (Img.11). This again reduced the contrast and made the left hand side of the subject a bit brighter. I am assuming the light coming from the right hand side would be classed as the key light, and the light being bounced from the left as fill light.

Setup for image 10:

Setup for image 11:

I was still not satisfied with the bright patch on the right of the subject. Going back to the work of Jean Baptiste Huynh who’s bright but soft light comes from a large light source close to the subject, I thought I would experiment by varying the distance of the diffuser from the subject to see if it would affect the reduction of the bright area and general overall contrast. The light was kept the same distance from the diffuser and subject. The aim was to have a bright but diffused soft light, but still with enough contrast to show depth and from.

I took four shots:

• Diffuser very close to subject, there is very little contrast but the light is quite bright and soft. The image is a bit flat and lifeless (Img.12).
• Diffuser placed further away from the subject has given a bit more contrast, but the bright area is starting to appear (Img.13).
• Diffuser placed further away again from the subject and the  contrast has increased by more, but the bright area has started to become a bit distracting (Img.14)
• In the last shot, I tried to find the right place for the diffuser to allow a balanced contrast, with depth and form but no distracting highlight (Img.15).

Setup for image 12:

Setup for image 13:

Setup for image 14:

Setup for image 15:

I was a bit disappointed with the grey background but after achieving a satisfactory soft light on the subject, I wanted to see the effect of using gold and silver coloured reflectors (Img.16-17).
I kept the camera setup the same except for an additional light placed alongside the main light source to try and get a stronger main light.
Using the gold reflector gave the image a warmer look. The silver reflector brightened the image slightly when compared to image 15 with the white fill. Although the setup plan shows the reflectors directly to the left of the subject I did experiment with the direction that the light was being reflected, and it is actually being reflected from the left and down rather then directly across from left to right.

Setup for image 16:

Setup for image 17:

I then decided to change the direction of the light as, up to this point, I had generally only used light coming straight  down or from the side. I wondered if I could get rid of the grey background by using several lights shinning in different directions.

My first attempt was somewhat successful (Img.18). By shining a main light directly up and underneath the subject, the opaque white background has enough light to allow a correct exposure, without underexposing the subject. However I did notice what appears to be overblown highlights where the subject meets the surface, and where the majority of the light is being directed. It looks like it is floating in mid air.

Setup for image 18:

The set up for image 19 was the same as for 18, but with the addition of a large diffuser underneath and close to the subject. This reduced the brightness and brought back the blown area. It still looks like its floating in mid air, which I really like.

This exercise has taught me several things, but I think the most surprising was the ability to harden or soften the light using the distance between the diffuser and the subject. This will allow me  to change the quality of the light in respect of its softness/hardness. In a previous exercise (part  two, Collecting) I was frustrated with the bright highlights on some of the tools and although I took steps to try and soften them, I now realise that it would have been a good idea to use the diffuser near the subjects, when the main light source coming through the window was too hard.

 

Bibliography

Figure 1. Huynh, Jean Baptiste,  JAPON Portrait 20, 2002
Figure 2. Huynh, Jean Baptiste,  JAPON Pinceau, 2002
Figure 3. Huynh, Jean Baptiste, Metiorite 3, 2007
Figure 4. Huynh, Jean Baptiste,  Insectes Scarabe noir, 2002
At: http://www.jeanbaptistehuynh.com
[Accessed 04/11/2019]

Figure 1. Penn, Irving, John Marin, New York, 1947
At: http://www.irvingpenn.com/portraits
[Accessed 04/11/2019]