Question

1. What is frontlighting? What is one disadvantage to frontlighting? 2. What advantages does strobe lighting have over continuous lighting? 3. How can the time of day affect an outdoor photograph? 4. What are continuous lights? What advantages and disadvantages do they have? 5. What is a softbox? Why do photographers use a softbox? 6. Why do photographers use umbrellas? What benefits do they offer? 7. Why is it important to use artificial lighting for most indoor portraits? 8. What do you think is the most challenging aspect of working with light in photography? How can you try to reduce this challenge? 9. Have you ever taken a photograph or had your photograph taken in a studio? What was the experience like? How did lighting play a role in the photograph? 10. What tips or techniques should you keep in mind when shooting photographs on a rainy day? Do you think you’d like to photograph in the rain? Why or why not?

Answer 1

1.a)  The process of illuminating an object by putting the light source in front of the object is called front  lighting. It is helpful in illuminating the object, especially when lighting conditions are poor. This is commonly done using a camera flash. But other light sources can also be used.
1. b)If the light source is directly in front of the subject, then the shadow tends to fall behind the subject. For this reason, front lighting often runs the risk of resulting in images that look flat, since the perception of depth is not available.
2. Strobe lighting is a flash of high power light that illuminates a subject during photography for a short fraction of time. Continuous light, as the name suggests, is a continuous stream of light that illuminates the subject for a longer period of time. With strobes, you can adjust the strength of the light, whereas continuous light, which tends to be quite bright, may cause human  models to squint a lot. Moreover, since the strobe flash is very brief, it may reduce occurrence of movement-induced blurring.
3. Depending on the time of the day,  the light falling on the subject in an outdoor  setting tends to differ. This, in turn, has an effect on the brightness, contrast and shadows in the image. So the same subject, photographed at different times during the day will look different.
4. Continuous light, in contrast to strobe light, provides light in a continuous flow. Thus, the light present in the period before the shot and during the shot is the same. This is advantageous for the photographer as he can know in advance how the lighting of the image is going to be in  the picture before actually shooting the picture. The disadvantage is that  the brightness of the light for prolonged periods may cause human models to squint a lot.
5.  A softbox is a translucent sheet that is placed on the top of a camera flash. This is used by photographers to diffuse the light falling on the subject, giving the subject a softer look, by blurring sharp or harsh edges.
6. Photographers use umbrellas while taking pictures in order to distribute the light in the ambience evenly.  This effect causes the light , in turn, to fall on the subject uniformly, avoiding individual areas of the subject from shining too much.
7. When shooting indoors, the lighting in the ambience may not be uniform. Some areas may be too bright and shiny while others may be heavily shadowed. So to ensure that the subject gets a uniform amount of ample light, it is best to use artificial lighting.
8. The most challenging aspect of working with light in photography is knowing which lights to use at different situations and time. To overcome this challenge, the photographer has to make himself as familiar as possible with the different lighting sources and its effect and practice by experimenting on different subjects, with different lights and at different times of the day.
9. Yes, I have  had my photograph taken in a studio. The experience was very interesting as I was able to get myself familiar with a lot of tools used in photography, like umbrellas, lights, softboxes, etc.The lighting helped enhance all the photographs. By adjusting the  lighting each time, the photographer was able to achieve different effects on the photographs each time. The variance in the intensity of light as well as the position and direction of the light had an effect on the brightness, the shadows, highlights and hues in the image.
10. Since it tends to be dark and cloudy during  a rainy day, it would be wise to keep an artificial light source or flash handy . Moreover, to avoid water getting into the photography equipment, a good rain cover for the lights, camera, etc. would be advisable. In spite of the shoot being difficult, it would help produce interesting images, as the camera catches the round spherical droplets of falling water, that look like vertical lines to the naked eye.

Answer 2

hey there,

Here are my personal responses to these questions in this unit:

1. Frontlighting is when the sun is in the back of the photographer. One disadvantage is that it can create a photograph with a flattened appearance.

2. Strobe lighting can remain consistent (same lighting throughout all photographs), while continuous lights can become more yellow as they age.

3. Time of day can affect a photograph, and it especially is a bad idea to take photos at noon because there is a small number of shadows and harsh lighting. Taking photos is better later in the day when the lighting is “softer”.

4. Continuous lights are lights that remain on like lamps. Some advantages are that they are not that expensive and you can see shadows and highlights. Some disadvantages are that the light is not balanced to daylight and that these lights get warm which is uncomfortable for the person photographed and the person doing the photography.

5. Softboxes are lighting devices that enclose the lighting source in a “box” with reflective back and side walls. Softboxes can be cheap and they produce soft light.

6. Photographers use umbrellas to help control and soften the light. Umbrellas can give different types of light by color and create soft light by their large size.

7. It is important to use artificial lighting in indoor portraits because they can help decrease bright lighting from the flash on your camera, lots of shadows, and red eyes in the photograph. It also makes the photo more “pleasing”.

8. I think the most challenging aspect is trying to find the best light for the purpose. Sometimes, you might want it really bright to show something special or the other way around. A way to reduce this aspect is just try to find ways to photograph using different lights, including artificial light to see which looks best and has good exposure.

9. I have had a photograph taken of me in the studio. It took a long time for the photographer to be able to capture a good photograph. There were also a lot of artificial lights all around the room and they used flash on most of the photos.

10. I think using an artificial light would be helpful since most of the time it can be a gloomy feel so it will be very dark. Most rainy photos are also supposed to show sadness, so I think the more lights and colors you bring into the photo, the happier and better it will look. I would like to photograph in the rain because I want to see a photo of still drops in the air - I think it would look very cool.

Hope this helped! Feel free to ask anything else.