Experimentation is important because it introduces you to new tools and techniques. Sometimes, it’s something as simple as snapping a photo when you’re standing on the wrong side of the light, which leads you to realize (or at least remember) that there are more qualities to light than just the ones you’re seeing.

The secret to great photography is great lighting. The camera doesn’t matter at all. The lens only matters a little. The most important element of any photo is the lighting. Lighting casts shadows which define shapes, tell stories, add drama. Lighting is what paints the mood on your subject. Used well, lighting can make the dullest subject interesting; used poorly, lighting can make the most interesting subject dull.

A single light from overhead, with barndoors to contain it, made exactly the kind of eerie shadows I wanted for this “bust” of a bald female. The heavy, directional shadows also allowed me to hide some details I didn’t want showing, while still allowing for full-frontal nudity.

Using a single overhead strobe at high power with barn doors, I was able to create very long, dramatic shadows and a great deal of light fall-off. The big features and deep creases in this particular mask play well with the dramatic light to create a particularly eerie effect, which is served by the anguish in the pose.

Fun things happen every time you get new gear. This weekend, I got a 6-foot diffusion panel — something I’ve wanted for a few months now — and yesterday I got a chance to break it in, though perhaps not in the way the manufacturer had intended.

Unlike taking a photo, where you try to adequately capture what a scene gave you, there is more control when you make a photo. With a few exception, you tend to have a lot of control over many aspects of the shot, including subject, background, and today’s topic: lighting.

There are really only a handful of ways to modify light, even though the number of tools with which to do so are infinite. Don’t get lost deciphering between strobes and hot lights and soft boxes and umbrellas and diffusers and reflectors and lions and tigers and bears. Oh my. As I always say, if it’s hard, that means you’re doing it wrong.

Size does matter

The first thing one should know about controlling light is that a large light source creates soft shadows, while a small light source creates hard shadows. One example of this might be the difference between the harsh, high-contrast light you get on a bright sunny day versus the soft, beautiful light you get on a cloudy day. The sun by itself is (figuratively) a small light source — just a dot in the sky, really. By comparison, on a cloudy day, the sun lights the clouds, but the clouds are your light source. The world’s biggest softbox, for free!

Along with that, you should remember that distance changes the effective size. A light with a 30-inch umbrella may be many times the size of a person’s head, but it won’t create soft shadows if it’s 10 feet away. Similarly, an 18-inch reflector really isn’t going to be much good in the hands of an assistant, because it’s small size requires that it be very close to your subject — that is, your model needs to hold it.

What set’s you apart

The second important thing to remember is that light — or, more accurately, changes in light — are what tell us what we’re seeing. We need the modeling of shadows to convey a three-dimensional shape in a two-dimensional image. I know that’s a vague statement, but if you keep it in mind you’ll never have any problem figuring out where to put your light source(s).

The need for modeling of shadows is the reason why good photographers never use their camera’s built-in flash as a main light source. (Some do use it, as fill.) Since shadows show in the places where there is no light, a flash coming from the same direction as the camera is going to leave the shadows where they do no good!

Why do professional portrait photographers put a light on the background? It creates separation. That is to say that it reveals where the subject stops and the background starts. This is also why glamour photographers have an extra light set up just to light their subject’s hair.

In the first photo above, there is a large, soft light source from camera left creating nice shadows, but without any fill, background, or rim lighting, the light just falls off into obscurity. You can’t see where the subject (me!) ends and the background begins. Sometimes this is the desired effect, but sometimes it is not. In the second photo, lights from behind on both sides separate the subject from the background, and reveal details in the hair, pose, etc.

It’s all black and white
And the final thing to remember is that where photography is concerned, light goes from black to white. Period. Too much light (for the exposure) will result in an all-white photo, no matter what color the light is. And too little light will always result in black. Not only does this mean that proper exposure is critical for getting your colors right, but it also means that with a little creativity in your exposure you can intentionally get your colors wrong!

If you intentionally overexpose the sky, it will turn white, allowing you to make some interesting fine art photos of leaves or flowers, even without a studio. Likewise, with an off-camera flashgun, you can underexpose on a sunny day and still get a black background. Try it!

One of my favorite examples of this was a photo shoot I did in a location that had no great backgrounds. I was able to muster up a red bedsheet, but I really didn’t like the look I was getting from that. The solution was to crank up the lights and completely overexpose the red material until it turned white. As you can see, the results were pretty cool.

In the first two photos, the background is not truly black, but by under-lighting and under-exposing the background, I was able to obtain the black color I wanted for the photo. In this third photo, the background was nowhere close to white, but by flooding it with enough light, I was able to turn it white (and get a little bit of magenta spill onto the subject).

That’s all you really need to know about controlling your light. Yes, there are more things that are good to know, and maybe I’ll touch on them in the future, but if you remember these three things there’s no reason you can’t figure out the rest on your own.

I’ve recently written a pair of posts about the difference between taking a photo and making a photo, and the whole subject of this difference has really gotten my mind going on the subject. It would seem that I’ve got quite a lot of opinions about it!

Photo takers capture what happens to be there. Some may prefer it this way, but I believe many have simply never thought about what it would take to me a photo maker, so this will be an introduction to what is involved in making a photo.

Knowing your goal

Failing to plan is planning to fail. A good photo must start with a goal. It is important to determine up front what you want to accomplish. What thought or emotion do you want to convey? Is the photo going to represent a professional? Is it going to be used on a business card? Is it a glamor photo? An editorial? An art piece? Is it meant to sell clothing? Is it meant to illustrate a procedure? Determining the purpose up front is an important part of making a great photo.

Knowing your audience
There are actually two parts to knowing your audience. The first is determining who your viewers will be. The reason for this is that you choose imagery to which your audience will relate. For instance, if your photo is about the strong taking advantage of the weak, an adult may relate to a photo of a group of police beating up on a minority, whereas a child might relate better to a bigger kid stealing lunches from a smaller kid.

The second part of knowing your audience is determining who you want them to be. This helps you to determine aspects of the photo such as camera angle. Should the viewer be emotionally neutral to the scene? Should they feel disoriented? Are they meant to revere the subject? Scorn it? For instance, if the viewer is meant to take the side of the bully, shoot from up high, over the bully’s shoulder. If the viewer is meant to take the side of the underdog, shoot from a low angle, up into the bully’s menacing face.

Choosing a subject

While those who take photos may already have some control over their subject, the power to choose your subject that is introduced when you make a photo may be quite new. Will you choose a subject with hard, chiseled features? Do you want a soft, friendly face? How should they be dressed? How should they be posed?

Choosing a location
What clues can your choice of location add to the photo? Again, with the bully example, how could your choice of location help or hurt that photo? What idea would the photo convey if you shot it at night, in a warehouse district, by the loading dock? How might that idea be different if you shoot during the day, near the merry-go-round, at a park? What about in a parking garage, surrounded by dozens of onlookers?

Controlling your lighting
Perhaps one of the most daunting of new factors one encounters in the switch to making a photo is the total control of lighting. How much light do you need? Where do you need it? Should the light be at the front? On the side? High? Low? Do you want long, ominous shadows, or soft, pleasant shading? Do you have a lot of detail that needs to be filled in? What if the light was set up that the bully’s face was hidden in a shadow… how might that change the meaning of our photo?

Composition
In addition to all the “golden rules” of composition, there are, again, new ideas to consider when “making” a photo? What part of the scene do you put in? What part should you leave out? How might you crop the shot to change its meaning? Can you use a different lens to cut out the cars in the parking garage? Can you assign a new meaning by tilting your camera to the right or left?

I’m certain that there are more aspects that could have been included, but hopefully this is enough to get the mind going, and start you thinking about how you could exercise a little control over different aspects of your photography in order to make more interesting photos.

If you’ve ever wanted to make a lighting diagram, you can do it with Lighting Studio 1.0. It’s a simple, web-based utility for making lighting diagrams. You can even save and share your lighting diagrams.

It doesn’t have the ability to print, however you could screen capture it and print it by other means. Hey, it’s not bad for free.

One of my favorite things to use in photography is shadows. It’s often too easy to pay so much attention to your subject that you miss the shadow they’re casting. Each person’s body, arms, legs, head, and hair combine with posture to form a unique shadow unlike that of anyone else, and as a photographer, each subject’s shadow can be very interesting.

I like to think of it as playing shadow puppets with a whole body. You can make a a hedgehog, or a witch, or a statue.