Page 41 - Lighting the Un-lightable 2015

The volume of light in this space was extremely inconsistent:

With the exception of the heavy shadows to the right of the pillow,
this area was within one f-stop across the entire section. Normally, I
6 1 will either light the scene so that the shadows are removed, or, I will
design the lighting so that the shadows are softened. Here, however, to
be true to Hurrell's style, I needed the sharp edge. This created anoth-
er problem: Left unbalanced, the viewer's eye would go directly to the
shadow and to the model.

Here I had two concerns. The first was the wood trim of the sofa
and the other was the wood floor. Both could be problematic since
they could become mirror-like. Also, I wanted to push the shadows
2 under the sofa so that they were still present but less obtrusive. The
cross grain of the trim on the sofa is a key element. When I pulled the
Fresnel light to the side, i wanted it to highlight and not obscure the
detail in the trim. I was even able to capture the pattern and detail in
the rug.

1 This area was used to balance the harsh shadow to the left of the

3 under her arm to be as powerful as the other one and I needed her to
pillow on the other side of the couch. To do that, I needed the pillow

connect visually with that pillow. Note the way the light wraps around
her arm and the way her hands touch the pillow.

The volume of light here was at its lowest. Again, given the style I was
4 using, I needed and wanted heavy shadows. I also wanted to keep as
much detail in the shadow as was possible. If you zoom in, you can
see ample detail in the wood. I had to rely on the second light to fill
2 this area enough to bring out the detail in the wood.

Windows are always problematic. However I lit the room, I needed to keep the light from the
strobes from reflecting into the windows or off the dark wood. One option I had was closing the
blinds to keep the light off the glass of the window. I elected not to do that because I liked the ef-
6 fect the outside world had on the scene. Turning the second strobe away from the room and firing
it against the outer wall in the hall proved critical to achieving this effect.

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Spring 2015 | 41