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Lighting: the basics...

key: The main light, the light that defines your subject's shape

Fill: Light that fills in the subject's shadows. Fill can be naturally occurring, created by bouncing the key light into the shadows, or created artificially with a separate light.

Kicker: a harder light source for the side, used to bring out the cutting edges in bone definition.

Rim: Hard light source from almost behind subject that just plays slightly on the cheek

back light: self explanatory

Diffusion: a misty transparency used to soften light, also gives spread

these are the basics, there is more to lighting, but this is a more than adequate start

before setting up a single light. Make a fist with your hand of preference, hold out directly in front of you, and see how the light falls upon your fist. This will give you an idea of what the available light is already doing for you.
Always start with a filler. Decide how you want your fill. Do you want a soft, warm, molding key? Giving contrasting textures? Or a slightly harder key that bleaches out the features, reducing lines?
The first is simple... all you need is one light, dragged a lil distance from your subject. A lil diffusion is required. Great fill can be achieved by bouncing light off of walls
creating a harder light that reduces lines is a little more tricky. The light source should be brought closer, and heavily diffused, so that you get a soft even spread of bleached light. Color correction can be difficult if you are substituting proper diffusion gels for things like sheets. Even with the correct tools, allot of tweaking of lights, gels and f-stop is gonna get you there. Make up is a big help too.
Ok now a kicker. Kickers are great; they make the face more angular. Best effects are achieved from a naked, hard light source from a 3/4 angle either left or right of subject. A small amount of diffusion can lend a nice side mold too. Two kickers are also a great way to bring out a high contrast photo, mixed with a very soft fill light to bring out the eyes.
Rims work well with soft warm keys. Diffuse light, and then get some one to drag it from a kicker angle slowly farther, until you see it just barely touch upon subject’s side.
If lighting completely out doors in the sun, position subject so that the sun does the work of a kicker or rim, and add key with mirrors, white sheet card, sheets anything you can get your hands on. The best D.I.Y. is to get a huge art portfolio, and line the inside with foil. This will give you three surfaces to bend light to your liking. Also the light is not as hard and blinding as that from a mirror.





Flourescent:
Fun stuff, they give a great wrap around effect, nice and soft when used properly. They do how ever give a marked green tint, this can be solved by buying a flourescent filter for the color correction. Fourescents are a very languid light source, and are hard to get a decent F stop.
Best used off the fixtures, hanging verticaly from a stand. Flag off the light by using pieces of cardboard, this reduces the 'Flood" effect of the light, giving you more control. It is always best to turn them on when horizontal, as they work on a chemical base, that has difficulties when not evenly spread. These work great as a key or filler, with another light source as a kicker (a source at about 10 o'clock, or 2 o'clock that basically defines jaw structure, and brings out facial features rather well) Fluorescents are not the best primary light if left upon the ceiling, as they cast horrid eye shadow, leaving you with zombie lighting.



Tungsten:
For those of you who work with film, this is your equivalent film "temperature". tungsten being on the orange side of the spectrum, giving a "warm" feel. Incandescent being on the blue side, your "cold” feel.
The same applies for your light source. All lights have differing light temperature. Just about every light in your house is going to be a tungsten light; except for your florescent lights (they don’t fall under either category, and live all by themselves.). This means that you will have predominantly warm pictures. Especially if you are gonna do long exposures. Again the best way to deal with these light sources is to use flagging with anything you can get your hands on. Always try to control the light, not the other way round.

Incandescent:
I doubt many of you are gonna come across much incandescent light. The reason being that it takes a much higher vibration to create a blue source. This means more power, lots of it. People do not go around trying to build houses that are gonna cost a fortune in lighting. They start at around 500 watts, and go right up to like 18K lights that weigh in at 90kg. Well no that’s not entirely true, you get balloon lights which are more, but I have never used one, and am not sure what wattage they are, nor how much they weigh. Anyway, incandescent are great for emulating hard light from big sources, like the sun. More of a Film production tool, so I am not gonna goes into any more detail.

Flash:
Color temperatures on flash systems vary, but they are usually between 4000-5600k this is a nicely neutral temperature. This does of course depend on how you use the light. A naked flash fire is rather hard, and drowns out everything in its way, including color. Where as a diffused flash is a wonder full thing.

Shooting with flash, fashion style in the out doors

I am gonna segment this into two sections… in the next tutorial
Have a fab day
Ciao
Tegwin

www.tegwin.com
www.astudiocalledwonder.com