Page 33 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 2 #2
P. 33

“It was late in the afternoon  over my hands. “Pointless,”
                                          and I walked into the room  I said to myself.
                                          – THE room – just  as the           Rhea was  touching  up  her
                                          afternoon light  streamed           makeup and I  knew I had
                                          through the wood and tex-           just a few more minutes at
                                          tile shades. Across the floor,      most  to  find  some  way  to
                                          the pattern I  had seen so          light the un-lightable.
                                          many times, taunted me.
                                                                              Why should something as
                                          Over  the  past  five  years,  I    simple as a pattern of light
                                          imagined  capturing  that           on a floor or a wall be so dif-
                                          pattern  over a model  and          ficult to photograph?
                                          I confess  that while  I have
                                          tried a couple of times, I al-      That seemed  like a sim-
                                          ways  have come  away dis-          ple  question, but the more
                                          appointed.                          I  tried to get the photo I
                                                                              wanted the more I knew it
                                          I knelt on the floor and let        wasn’t.”
                                          the  pattern  run randomly




























 LIGHTING THE UN-LIGHTABLE.  THINKING ABOUT LIGHT


             the shadows. Been there. Tried that. It didn’t      There is a wall mirror across from where Rhea
             work. The corner of the room was far too dark       is sitting. Aiming the lights at the mirror so
             as  was  the  shadow  on  the  floor.  Ironically,   that the light is pushed back into the  room
             this  approach also  made  the  bed  stand  out     didn’t work either.
             too much and the skin of the model just didn’t      You get my point.
             look, well, acceptable. Scratch that option.
                                                                 So,  how  did  I  finally  get  it  right?  By  under-
             I have tried the opposite as well. That didn’t      standing the volume of light in the room and
             work. Whole sections of the floor were just too     using it to my advantage. In fact, the volume of
             hot and there was no way I could reconstruct        light in the room is much higher from the top
             the lost detail.                                    of the bed up than it is from the top of the bed
             I tried aiming the light up at the ceiling. Not     to the floor. So, to fix the problem, I needed to
             good either. White hot ceiling. Very dark room      raise the volume of light below the surface of
             from the bed down.                                  the bed and lower the volume above it.





 nyghtvision magazine                                           volume 2, number 2, summer 2012
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