“In this post you will learn about how lighting is used in photography to create dramatic photos, and look at how lighting affected some of the photos I have taken.“
How does lighting direction affect your subject’s tone?
The lighting of a photo can completely change the tone and story of a photo. If a picture has the light source behind the subject it creates a glowing, kind of mysterious tone. When a picture has front lighting is it pretty straight forward and maybe creates a neutral tone. Side lighting can add a dramatic and dynamic tone to a photo. Lighting can also create shadows. A hard shadow has a harsher feel, while a soft shadow creates a more peaceful feel.
Which photo best expresses emotion through light or shadow?
I think this picture creates the most emotion and drama out of all the photos I took for this assignment. I like how the light is directly shining on the subject. This light helps create a happy, light feel to the photo. I also love how this photo is black and white. The black and white contrast helps create a more dramatic lighting.
What surprised me about shooting shadows?
Something that surprised me when shooting shadows and lighting pictures was how much easier it is to catch a good shadow when using the monochrome setting. Using the black and white contrast makes it easy to find dramatic shifts between light and shadows. I also did not expect me to take mostly black and white photos. But I ended up liking the monochrome setting much better than the standard one when capturing these photos.
Front Lighting
Both of these photos feature front lighting, because the main source that is lighting the subject is coming from the front. These are pretty standard photos without much drama or unique lighting.
Side Lighting
Both of these photos feature side lighting. The photo to the left shows the sun shining light on my subject perfectly from the side. The right photo has light coming from the right side, which created a shadow to the left of the subject.
Back Lighting
These photos both feature light pouring in from the windows creating backlit pictures. The photo to the left has the sunlight making the window and children close to the window glow, which created a dramatic touch. The right picture also has that dramatic touch because of the dark and light contrast.
Shadows
The picture to the left features a harsher, sharper shadow, while the photo to the right has softer, less harsh shadows. I think the harsh shadow nicely compliments the busy room I took the photo in. It almost creates an unorganized but still beautiful tone. The soft shadows to the right create a peaceful, kind of mysterious tone. The empty couch and bear white walls also add to that tone.
Featured Photo & Reflection
I chose this picture as my featured photo because I love the drama created by the lighting. I think it perfectly shows how lighting can add more interest into your photo. Without the dramatic lighting the picture would be incomplete.
Reflection: I think this assignment might have been one of my favorites. I loved creating dramatic scenes with lighting and experimenting with the monochrome setting on my camera. I can’t wait to use what I have learned when taking personal photos and more.