Lighting P3(c)

The three point lighting is a simple system of professional lighting which is used by photographers. Usually the system is made by three lights:
Key light- this light is the main and the strongest one. It is placed to one side of the camera/subject so that this side is well lit and the other side has some shadow.
Fill light - this light is located on the opposite side of Key light. It's used to clean the shadows which are created by key light. It's usually softer than the opposite one.
Back light - The back light is placed behind the subject and lights it from the rear. Rather than providing direct lighting, its purpose is to provide definition highlights around the subject. This helps separate the subject from the background.

Low key lighting

Traditional photographic lighting, three-point lighting uses a key light, a fill light, and a back light for better composition and to avoid shadows on the main subject. Low-key lighting often uses only one key light, optionally controlled with a fill light or a simple reflector. Low key light strengthens the contours of an object by making areas darker while a fill light or reflector may illuminate the shadow areas to control contrast.

Chiaroscuro lighting

Chiaroscuro is an Italian artistic term used to describe the dramatic effect of contrasting areas of light and dark in photography. The term "chiaroscuro" was coined during the Renaissance to describe its use by painters. "Chiaro" meaning light and "scuro" meaning dark. The concept is the same whether the artist is a photographer, a painter, or a lighting consultant for theatre or film. Light is used to create bold contrast.

George Hurrell

George Hurrell (1904–1992) was one of the most important American photographers of the 1930s. Between 1930, when he became the primary portrait photographer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and 1942, when he was drafted to take photos for the Army, he developed the lighting techniques and visual vocabulary that gave Hollywood stars their special aura of grace, mystery, and perfection. He was the master of Hollywood glamour. Until recently, his subjects’ celebrity overshadowed his art; even collectors generally paid more attention to Hurrell’s subjects than to his techniques. Hurrell sculpted his subjects’ faces with light and shadow, using an easily movable boom light that he modelled on a boom microphone, to illuminate cheekbones and create shadows under the eyes and nose. “The most essential thing about my style was working with shadows to design the face instead of flooding it with light,” he said.

Hurrell’s work emphasized beauty. And it celebrated the human face. Now that we’ve largely forgotten the personas those faces represented, we can more fully appreciate the photographer’s art.



Richard Avedon 

Richard Avedon is an American photographer. As a fashion photographer in the early 1940s and into the '70s, Avedon blended fashion and art photography, which had never been tried before. His lighting techniques make his photographs memorable. The silvery subject's face, eyes, and body seem to emanate light themselves. Studying his creative and resourceful lighting techniques helps deepen appreciation for his work. Using a natural skylight in his New York City studio, Avedon was one of the first fashion photographer to use natural lighting for commercial purposes. The two natural lighting sources produced a naturally occurring white background with enough light in the foreground to illuminate his subjects. Avedon and his assistants added large reflectors to strengthen the sharpness and contrast in the model's face, eyes, hair, clothing and other small details, like a pearl necklace. Avedon's photographs are recognisable for being generally well lit and the signature white backdrop. Practicing minimalism in terms of no extra props or backgrounds and a minimal lighting system, Avedon let his portrait-subjects move as they wished and he moved the key lights, filters and natural lighting sources to fit their movements, not the other way around.

Youseph Karsh 

Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002) is one of the masters of 20th century photography.  His body of work includes portraits of statesmen, artists, musicians, authors, scientists, and men and women of accomplishment.  His extraordinary and unique portfolio presents the viewer with an intimate and compassionate view of humanity. Over his 67-year career, Karsh photographed some of the most notable thinkers, artists, entertainers and leaders of the 20th century, using a lighting technique he himself pioneered.Karsh like many of the other portrait photographers of his generation often used point source lights and large format cameras to capture their portraits. Karsh often keyed his subject from at or behind stage line leaving large amount of his subject in shadow.  Karsh also routinely used understated background and hair lights also known as accent lights in order to create depth and separation. The accent and background lights were always subordinate to the key or main light and provided separation but did not compete for the viewers attention. As in black on black many of Karsh's portraits were low key. That is, much of the information in his images would occupy the left side of the histogram. None of his photographs lacked detail. This was truly a delicate balancing act between lights. Much of Karsh's subject were in the shadow created by the key light. The fill light was very critical in his set ups or much of the subject's features would be lost to this shadow. The fill light, being a point source, left a sharp cast shadow. In order to minimize the shadow it had to be placed in the shadow of the key light.

Information is taken from: http://myphotolesson.com
http://www.ehow.co.uk
http://www.theatlantic.com


Setting Up 3 Point Lighting

We did the exercise to study how to use the three point light system in the real photo shoot and how to achieve a portrait of the person without shadows of his/her face. 

This picture has been made on Aperture Priority program. We used quite big aperture because we wanted to pay all attention to the foreground and background should stay a bit fuzzy because there is a shadow which audience don't need to see and to be focused on. On the boy's face there are not any shadows at all therefore 3 point lighting system worked on this picture. Key light was located in front of the model. Fill light was in the right side in the middle of key light and back light. Shutter was opened for the quite long time and the ISO was very high that's why the picture looks very bright and light because more light went into the focus.

We used manual exposure program while taking this picture. Aperture which we made was opened very wide that's why the background here is very blur in compare with the foreground. From this point of view the light which we used as a fill light became the key light. It was located opposite back light and the fill light was on the left hand side. There are not shadows on the model face but we can see shadows on the background. We can see highlight around the subject due the back light and this looks more attractive for the audience. The speed of the shutter was very low and ISO was high in this image therefore more available lighting went into the focus and image looks very lightly and bright.

This image was made on aperture priority exposure program. Shutter speed on this photo was much faster than on the previous pictures that's why it's not as bright as others. But the light has been made right therefore there are no shadows on boy's face. But behind him we can see a shadow but it's blur because the aperture is wide opened so the shadow is not eye-catching. The foreground is a bit fuzzy in compare with images above because of smaller number of ISO and shutter speed.

Exposure program which we used to make is normal program. That means that all settings were made automatically by the camera. The light in here is worse than on previous images.It was wrong angle when we were taking it. I was standing between Key and Fill light therefore we can see shadows on boy's face. It could be improved if I stayed behind the key light. Also there are big shadows on the background but it's a bit fuzzy because aperture was wide.

This picture has been made with shutter priority exposure program. This point of view from which this image has been taken is better than previous one. There are less shadows on boy's face and less shadows which are eye-catching on the background. Background is fuzzy again because of the small f-number of aperture.