Page 64 - Lighting the Un-lightable 2015

visible, then the opposite is true. She will reflect more light than she will absorb. I

couldn't see Katie's blood vessels.

Fourth, I have studied the work of others who have sought to produce images in Hur-

rell's tradition. Those who are successful often sacrifice image quality in the process.

That was the last thing I wanted to do, especially given the fact that I would be using

a Pentax 645D medium format camera.

Fifth, and perhaps the most challenging, I had forgotten how, under the correct cir-

cumstances, strobes could make a room look considerably darker than it appears to

the human eye. This"light inversion" could potentially push the blackest black and

the whitest white even farther apart. That in turn would cause all kinds of problems

- from intense reflections from the polished wooden floors, to unwanted reflection

of light from Katie's face.

Sixth, I studied the pattern of one of the lights on the floor as I was waiting for Katie

to dress for the first part of our work together. I noticed that the softest light seemed

to occupy the outer third of the Fresnel. In effect, while the "function" of a Fresnel

light is to "tighten" the beam of light emitted, there was still diffusion. I wanted to

be able to take advantage of that. Initially, I wasn't sure how I would do that. Using

soft boxes, it is a matter of breaking the light about three feet in front of the model.

However, with soft boxes, the light was considerably more diffuse than it was with

Fresnel disks to begin with. To make it even more complex, I didn't want to soften

the light from the Fresnel disks so much that I lost the effect that became Hurrell's

hallmark.

Seventh, I realized that when Hurrell was working, his Fresnel lights were

(a) overhead and

(b) usually at a sharp angle in relationship to his model.

While there were some exceptions to this configuration, it appeared as though Hurrell

relied on the angle of the light to achieve the emotional effect he wanted.

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