Page 61 - Lighting the Un-lightable Volume 1 #3

the back of the house than it was to the front. Given the deck large deck on the
back of the house and the angle of the sun, a significant amount of light was re-
flected from the deck into the house. The light downstairs was very intense. It was
moving across the house from the back corner to the front left corner.
5 What is the volume of light? This is the most critical part of the equation. The
consistency of the volume of light is key to understanding the tonal range in the
space where I am working. Digital cameras "see" color, or interpolate color based
upon their perception of the tonal range. The greater the tonal range, the more
problematic the scene becomes for the camera. So, the goal is to make the volume
of light as consistent as possible. It doesn't matter whether the volume of light is
high or low, as long as it is consistent. The volume of light was extremely inconsis-
tent in this scene. It ranged from almost absolute white if I turned to face the back
of the house where the light was reflecting intensely from the deck, to almost zero
where Innana wanted to sit. This meant I was dealing with a difference between
black and white that was close to four F-Stops. Anything more than two is deeply
problematic.
There were other things I needed to keep in mind as well. The loft has a slopped roof and
the roof and the walls are all yellow pine and the floors are shellaced. If I wasn't extremely care-
ful, light from my flashes - I wasn't using strobes that day - would come
back at the camera and over expose any image I might try to create.
Remember too: The more "natural" a scene looks, that is the more a
scene looks like it was created with ambient light, the greater the emo-
tional impact an image will have. So, whatever I did, I had to make sure
I kept the shadows as natural as possible.
Also, I was going to be behind the chair so I had to make sure that
the light did not directly strike the lens and overexpose the image.
The photo on the left shows Innana prior to my lighting the scene. It
isn't a bad image, all things considered, but much detail is missing and
the image - to my eye at least - is flat. Great pose but not much else.

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