SIAST Applied Photography: lighting techniques

Showing posts with label lighting techniques. Show all posts

Monday, February 28, 2011

PHOT 210 ~ Advertising Image Design and Lighting

In this course, students explore the need for effective advertising images and learn how they are more than product illustrations. They discover the storytelling differences between formal advertisements and illustrative photography. Illustrations must make a visual statement. Advertising images are expected to showcase a product or service in an appealing or exciting manner. With all of the conceptual, lighting and production tools at their disposal, they create motivating and well-composed images for advertising and illustrative use.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

PHOT 210 ~ Illustrative Image Design and Lighting

Two dimensional design is a visual language. Like any language, it is meant as a form of communication. There are many parts to the language of design. How you organize the parts of your design will convey something about you and how you perceive the world. A very strong design may even make the viewer feel as you have felt.

As a designer you are translating your perception of a three dimensional world into a flat medium measured in only length and width. The basic requirements for two dimensional design are a flat surface and some kind of contrast. The design materials may take the form of a line or shape, or a particular colour, value or texture. These five elements are called the elements of design.

Within the composition of a photographic image, the elements of design are arranged according to principles of organization which incorporate two opposing concepts: harmony and variety. Harmony brings together diverse parts to unify the design. Variety adds contrasts to bring interest to the design. Rhythm and repetition add to the harmony of a design while contrasting elements and elaboration of detail add variety.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

PHOT 212 ~ Environmental and Group Portraiture

The impact and success of a studio portrait is often the combined result of lighting, composition, body language, lens choice, camera angle, clothing, colour, texture, and a bit of luck. With a little experience, and a few portrait techniques under your belt, your luck will improve dramatically. There are many approaches to posing and lighting in portrait-making that can help you develop your own photographic style over time. Ultimately, these are the things that can make your work unique.

Monday, February 7, 2011

PHOT 209 ~ Lighting Techniques for Advertising

Almost anyone can take a good picture at some time. But true professionals can make good photographs day in and day out, under ideal or adverse conditions. Most importantly, a great image has to have soul. This comes when you love your work, because how you feel about your work ultimately show through. You must be willing to spend the time to master your craft, and in the end, develop a distinctive but versatile style in order to succeed.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

PHOT 212 ~ Portraiture Techniques

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

PHOT 209 ~ Product Lighting

Small product photography is simply one form of still life photography. Although it can also involve human models, three-dimensional objects are typically photographed in a setting designed especially for the featured items. The techniques find application in advertising, publication and instructional media, and challenge photographers' technical competence as well as their eye for design.

In product photography, controlled lighting is an integral tool used by photographers to direct and mold the viewers response to their images. The techniques developed here are based completely on attempts to control the informational and emotional effects of the light presented. Technique, however, is merely a tool and not the end result. The key to the effective use of lighting technique is the understanding of visual communications as successfully portrayed to the viewer. This incorporates content as well as emotional appeal.

Monday, December 20, 2010

PHOT 213 ~ Warm Tone Images

Warm colours advance; cool colours recede. Light colours advance; dark colours recede. Intense colours advance; neutralized colours recede. These rules are basic to understanding how colour affects space. Colours will create different spatial qualities in combination with one another. For example a light, intense colour such as yellow will seem to come further forward when it is surrounded by a cool, dark or neutralized colour than when it is surrounded by an intense orange.

Complimentary colours that set one another off most strongly can activate an area of space and provide strong spatial accents. Analogous colours do not have the same bold contrast but because they move into one another on the colour wheel, they can be arranged to imply movement in space.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

PHOT 213 ~ High-key Lighting

In its simplest terms, a high-key photograph is a bright image full of light and mostly bright tones. But good high-key photography has a lot more to do with the quality of the light rather than the quantity of the light used to attain a successful image. Central to all of this is the mood the photographer is trying to achieve or communicate, often trying to create a feeling of freshness or optimism. While these techniques can be achieved with natural light, high-key photographs more commonly relate to induced mood lighting through a soft or diffused studio lighting set-up.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

PHOT 213 ~ Low-key Lighting Techniques

No matter the subject, there are choices to be made regarding the mood of a photograph. Visualization is knowing – in advance of taking a photograph – in what mood it will be received.

In general, people view a photograph and have an emotional response. The goal of a professional photographer is to draw out specific emotions. Lighting is the best tool a photographer has to control, guide and promote how their image will be experienced.

One of a photographer’s greatest challenges is to know the best way to light a subject and to control the light to the degree that it conveys precisely what the photographer has in mind.

Monday, December 13, 2010

PHOT 213 ~ Colour as a Subject

The endless variety of colour interacting with colour make it an exciting design element with which to work. Hue contrast, simultaneous contrast, warm/cool contrast, value contrast and contrast of intensity are aspects of colour which suggest its range. The addition of colour will affect line, shape, the principle of balance, dominance, variety and harmony in a design. The addition of a colour element to an achromatic design will immediately shift the balance. An intense yellow applied to a small secondary shape will attract attention to it.

Colour can also be used to strengthen an existing design idea. Using neutralized colour to set off the dominant element may make the dominant element stronger or the background more subtle. The best way to understand the effect of colour on other aspects of design is to experiment with it and observe the results.