How to use wood concrete blocks. Taking pictures in natural light

Greetings, dear reader! Today I will tell you about what you have long dreamed of learning, but apparently, you were afraid to ask :)
This is a post about how to make a high-quality, interesting studio portrait, with only two light sources, white umbrellas in the light, a beauty dish, white and black paper backgrounds, a portrait reflector.

Anticipating your euphoria, I hasten to warn you - there is no description of some “universal-magic” way of setting studio lighting, which will immediately allow you to take photos at the level of “great fathers” like Helmut Newton or La Chapelle.
But this material will significantly expand the scope of the studio flashes that are boring to you and will be a good incentive for self-improvement.

Why only two sources? Firstly, quantity does not always equal quality, although I like to say during the shooting in the studio the phrase: “there is no such thing as too much light”. Secondly, once you become proficient with two sources, you can easily move on to shooting with three or more lights. Thirdly, two light sources in the studio - the basic minimum, it is often the maximum. I dare to assume that our reader has probably already equipped his small cozy photo studio at home, or is thinking about it. So, for a home studio with a small area and, perhaps, a limited budget, two light sources are enough.

I use all these circuits in my studio work, and they have been repeatedly disassembled into components with my students.

Scheme one.

Using one light source (monoblock + plate reflector) and a white paper background, we created a rigid pattern of light and shadow, with clear transitions between them. The model stands close to the background so that the light source, located frontally, creates a short, dense shadow on a white background. The height of the monoblock can vary depending on the task - the higher the monoblock relative to the model, the longer the shadow will be. Ideally, you need a “crane” type stand, this will allow you to place the monoblock strictly opposite the model and nothing will interfere with shooting, as it can be in the case of using a conventional stand.

Scheme two.

Using one light source (monoblock + white umbrella "in the light") and a black paper background, we made a portrait where the model's face is lit only from one side. Such a scheme of light will add depth and expressiveness to the portrait, although its specificity is that it will not suit any model. In this case, the model is located at some distance from the background. Usually the monoblock is located at the level of the head of the model.

Scheme three.

Using two light sources (monoblocks + white umbrellas "in the light") and a white paper background, we place them diagonally relative to the model. The main light source is located on the left (see diagram) and works as a "drawing" one, creating a soft light-shadow pattern. An additional source is located to the right behind the model (see the diagram) and is aimed at the background behind the model. Thus, an additional light source works simultaneously as a fill, eliminating gaps in the shadows to the right of the model, and as a “backlight”, adding “volume” to the portrait. Please note that in this case the model is not parallel to the background, but in “three-quarters”. The height of the main light source can vary, usually at face level or slightly higher. An additional light source can be placed a little lower, at the level of the model's shoulders, in order to more evenly distribute the light on a white background. This picture was taken through wet glass.

Scheme four.

In this scheme, we used two light sources (monoblocks + white umbrellas “to the light”) and a white paper background. Both sources are installed to the left and to the right relative to the model, each source shines at an angle of approximately 45 degrees (see diagram). In this case, both sources "work" to fill the scene, creating a very soft light-shadow pattern. There are no deep shadows on the face of a model with this scheme. The height of the light sources may vary. Usually they are located at the level of the eyes of the model, or slightly higher. With this scheme, the white background acquires a shade of gray due to “underlighting”. You can use this effect, or frame the portrait so that the background is not visible.
By the way, when shooting beauty portraits, we often use a portrait reflector. And this shot clearly demonstrates the advantage of using this photo accessory. When shooting in the studio, it is very useful - with its help you can more evenly distribute the light over the face, make the transitions in the shadows on the neck and lower part of the model's face as soft as possible. A small reflector was used here (not shown on the diagram), diameter is 32 inches, the working surface is “silver”, the location is in the center, at the level of the model’s chest.

Scheme five.

In this scheme, we used two light sources (monoblocks + white umbrellas “to the light”) and a black paper background. Both sources are installed on the left and right, diagonally relative to the model. The main source is set to the left of the model, this is our "drawing" light, it forms a light triangle on the right side of the model's face (see photo). This scheme is often referred to as the "triangle". The second light source is located in this case on the right, it creates a “backlight” light, highlighting the hair and figure of the model, adding volume to the portrait. A slight “flare” of the background changes the pure black color to dark gray gradation. In this case, this is rather an advantage, because gray is lighter, more neutral.

Scheme six.

Here we used two light sources (monoblocks + white umbrellas “to the light”) and a white paper background. Both sources are installed to the left and to the right relative to the model, each source shines approximately at an angle of 90 degrees (see diagram). In this case, both sources “work” for filling, creating a soft light-shadow pattern on the left and right, while in the center of the model’s face we get a zone with deep shadows. Such a scheme of light will add expressiveness to the portrait, although not for everyone. The white background in this case takes on shades of gray.

Diagram seven.

In this scheme, we used two light sources (monoblocks + one white umbrella “to the light”) and a black paper background. Both sources are installed on the left and right, diagonally relative to the model (see diagram). The main source is installed almost frontally relative to the model, this is our “fill” light, it forms an almost uniform illumination of the scene over its entire area. The second light source is located to the right and behind, it creates a “backlight” light, highlighting the figure of the model, adds rigidity in the overall light key, thanks to which volume appears. As a diffuser, a “cup” is used, which comes with the monoblock. With its help, you can make very hard light-shadow transitions, with almost no gradation. Note that the "backlight" source was set for another purpose - to effectively "draw" small water splashes.

Scheme eight.


In this scheme, we used two light sources (monoblocks + white umbrellas “to the light”) and a white paper background. Both sources are installed behind the model, on the left and on the right, and are directed to a white background at an angle of about 45 degrees (see diagram). In this case, both sources "work" to create a soft silhouette portrait. Due to the use of a white background and “fill”, diffused light, a slight illumination of the model is obtained. Small details are hidden in the shadows, but the general outlines of the face are quite recognizable. If desired, you can apply a light color tinting of the background, in this case we used pink, so that the picture is more gentle, warm and sensual.

Diagram nine.

Using two light sources (monoblock + plate reflector and monoblock + standard cup) and a white paper background, we arrange them as shown in the diagram. We put the “plate” frontally, slightly above the level of the model’s eyes. As a result, we get the so-called. "butterfly" - for this scheme of light characteristic feature is the shadow of the model's nose in the shape of a butterfly. This scheme is also called the “Hollywood portrait” – many portraits in the film industry are shot this way. By the way, the higher the reflector is located, the longer the shadow from the nose will be, here the dimensions of the shadow are minimal, the classical scheme assumes a slightly longer shadow. The model in the photo stands at a distance of about a meter from the background, the shadow of the figure falls on the background, thereby making the frame more “dense”. It's not at all required condition, especially if you are shooting a facial portrait.
Ideally, you need a “crane” type stand, this will allow you to place the monoblock strictly opposite the model and nothing will interfere with shooting, as it can be in the case of using a conventional stand. An additional light source was placed just behind the model, at shoulder level, creating a “backlight” lighting. So we got the “drawing” of the texture of the hair and added volume to the picture.

Diagram ten.

This scheme is rather a bonus, since it is very similar to the fourth one, it has almost the same arrangement of monoblocks, white umbrellas and a white paper background are also used (see diagram). However, the essential difference between this scheme and the previous ones is the absence of pulsed light - this portrait was shot exclusively with modeling light. Due to the much lower light power, you can make a portrait with the shortest possible depth of field.

The number of lighting schemes that are used when shooting a portrait in a studio is not limited to ten options, and certainly you should not rest on two light sources. I show these diagrams as illustrative examples to show:
1. Everything ingenious is simple.
2. This material will make life much easier for those of you who are just about to take the first step towards shooting in the studio.
3. These ten schemes are just the tip of the iceberg :) I have something to say, show, and teach.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I teach photography - individually and in small groups.
You can choose a course in the direction you are interested in or compose individual plan classes.
Own methodological base of educational materials.

For questions about conducting classes in Kyiv, please call: 097 769 73 93

If you are not in Kyiv, I can offer you.

P.S.: I want to thank my wife Maria for her help in preparing this article for publication (selecting photos and compiling illustrations for lighting schemes).

Shooting indoors is not easy. Especially if you are a beginner. In this type of shooting, a lot depends on the technique. Light in the room, as a rule, is not enough. If it enters through a window or is emitted by lamps, then it falls at the wrong angle on the subjects, so you have to redirect it with reflectors or compensate with flashes. Without a good, bright lens, there is nothing to do indoors at all. Just having the technique is not enough to start making nice photos. You need to be able to use it and be able to use the environment.

How not to shoot indoors

Due to the small amount of light, you will have to use a flash. In order not to get in the picture a large number of noise, ISO is usually set to a minimum. What comes out of this. Most often, the picture looks like a white face on a dark background. The flash just doesn't light up the whole room.

Remember the background

The background in photography is as important as the subject itself. The background may be blurry or out of focus. but he must be present. It doesn't have to be black. In the picture you need to fit the foreground, middle ground and background. During training, it is not necessary to build an interesting background. First of all, you need to achieve a technically correct transfer of the background, and only then you can engage in artistic activities.

In a dark room, the first thing to do is to increase the shutter speed to the value at which the stir does not yet appear. There is a rule that says that in order to prevent blurry pictures when shooting handheld, the shutter speed should not exceed 1 / focal length of the lens. For example, if you are shooting at a focal length of 28mm, then the shutter speed should not exceed 1/25 sec. If the focal length is 80mm, then the shutter speed should be 1/80 sec, etc.

Aperture will help to slightly increase the brightness of the scene, but if it is not enough, then only ISO remains to increase the brightness. By increasing the light sensitivity by 2 times, a gain in illumination by one step is obtained. This means that by increasing the ISO, you can reduce the shutter speed or cover the aperture. Modern cameras allow you to take pictures with virtually no noise up to ISO 1600. Full-frame models have a higher threshold. With old cameras, you can work with ISO 800-1000 without much quality loss.

A small amount of noise does not particularly harm the picture. It may not be visible to the naked eye. In addition, a small amount of noise can be hidden in Lightroom. You just need to shoot in RAW. In Lightroom Noise is controlled by the Color Noise and Light Noise sliders.

Use flash wisely

Indoors, the flash should not play the role of the main light source. It should only highlight the shadows, play the role of a fill light source, or slightly add a foreground highlight. Pointing the flash at the ceiling or walls is not the best the best option. The interior decoration of the room can be multi-colored, and the light reflected from green, blue, red, etc. the walls take on the appropriate shade. All photos will be multicolored, and white balance correction will be excruciatingly long.

The ideal reflector color is white. Therefore, it is worth striving to use this particular color on reflective surfaces. The most common flash mode for indoor shooting is rear-curtain firing. It's easy to explain. If the flash fires with the front curtain, blurring will be visible in some situations. The flash blazes for the first moment, and then the frame is exposed, during which a stir may occur, and it will be superimposed on top of our subject. If you use a rear-curtain flash, the exposure will first occur, at which shaking is possible, and then the flash will puff, which will fix a clear and bright object on top of the shaking.

Quite often indoors, you can do without a flash. Many wedding photographers in the registry office shoot this way.

When shooting, it is worth thinking about the temperature of the light. Only the flash gives a neutral light, close to natural daylight. All other lighting fixtures produce bluish, reddish, yellowish light. This inevitably affects the result.

If different light sources are used in the same room, they will mix and create an incredible cocktail. An outbreak in such a situation can only do harm. If the ambient light has a greenish tone and you flash the foreground, then everything in the background will have a greenish tint, and objects that are a few meters from the lens will receive natural white lighting.

Correcting lighting in Photoshop is a thankless task, especially if you have several hundred photos, so it's easier to take care of the light sources in advance. To ensure that different types of lighting do not mix, you need to have a set of color filters with you. Having taken a test shot, you need to evaluate what color the frame is painted in natural light. Then you need to select a color filter for the flash with the same hue and install it. After that, the color temperature of the flash will not compete with the temperature of the light from the lighting fixtures in the room.

Choose the right means

"Indoor photography" is a broad concept that includes many different styles and methods of shooting. You can be a reportage photographer at various events. If you are going to sell your photographs to various publications, then the photographs must be top quality. Otherwise, no one will buy them from you. For such work, an expensive camera and optics are needed. Wedding photographers are allowed to have less expensive equipment, since the pictures will only be collected in a family album, but if you want to gain respect from your clients. the photos must also be of the highest quality. You must be able to draw from your technique all its possibilities. If you are shooting for friendly parties and feasts, then there are usually no special requirements for photographs. For such shooting, the most important thing is to betray the atmosphere, to capture some events. No one will peer into the naturalness of the color rendering of sandwiches and salads on the table. For such shooting, the simplest DSLR or even an ordinary, but high-quality compact is suitable.

To make it easier to decide which camera to buy, you should read the recommendations for choosing a camera in the article How to choose a digital camera.

Professional cameras, which have price tags starting at $3,000, are not only accurate and fast. They have full-frame sensors that allow you to get several times less noise compared to crops. This means that the acceptable (working) ISO values ​​\u200b\u200bcan be an order of magnitude higher than when working with crop cameras. Consequently, this makes it possible to take better pictures in low light conditions, which is exactly what professional reportage photographers need.

The flash will most often give a gain of about ½ or ⅓ stops. This is not much, but often this is not enough. In addition, thanks to the flash, shadows can be softened. The quality of work and functionality of the flash is directly proportional to its cost. It is worth choosing a flash based on the tasks that you are going to assign to it. You can talk about the outbreak for a very long time, so it is better to refer to our articles on this topic:

• Flash Basics
• About the expediency of using external flash
• Flash errors
• Flash Photography: Best Practices for ISO Management
• fill flash

Professional lenses start at $1000. Expensive optics differ from cheap ones in higher sharpness and aperture ratio. These are very important parameters that affect the quality of the resulting photos. High-aperture optics allow you not only to get good shots thanks to a flawlessly built lens system, but also to use lower ISO values, which also has a positive effect on photo quality. To decide on the choice of lens, you can read our article on this topic: "Choosing a lens".

Professional equipment makes it possible to obtain better results in any conditions. But the price of such equipment can upset many, therefore, when choosing a camera and accessories for it, you need to figure out the tasks that it will perform and, based on the available budget, select exactly what you need.

Experiments

Everything you read in this article is just the basic principles of indoor photography. Each type of shooting has its own rules and nuances. If you are overcome by the spirit of rebellion and you do not want to obey the rules, then it is still worth reading them to be aware of what exactly you are breaking.

When shooting a portrait indoors or outdoors, use different kinds light: drawing and filling, as well as modeling, backlight and background. Visual possibilities are expanded if additional lighting devices or reflectors are used. Using these types of light, they create a tonal or chiaroscuro pattern, with the help of which they reveal not only the characteristic features of the face, but also color combinations.

The tasks of portrait lighting can be defined as follows. First, it should reveal color shades and color contrasts. Secondly, to create a single color using light or dark tonality. Thirdly, color combinations in lights and shadows should emphasize the voluminous shape of the face.

When preparing for a portrait shot, the first thing to do is to choose the direction of the key light. When shooting in rooms with natural light, the person being photographed has to be seated in such a way as to find the appropriate position in relation to the window. In this case, the most expressive light and shade pattern is obtained.

When shooting indoors with electric lighting, on the contrary, change the location of the light source and the camera. Thus, at the first stage of the shooting process, both the position of the person being photographed and the shooting direction in relation to the key light must be found. After that, the posture, rotation of the body and tilt of the head are specified. At the same time, a shooting point is selected and thereby the image scale and angle are determined.

When looking for the best portrait composition, there are many other factors to consider, including the possibility of additional highlighting of shadows, the placement of subjects against the background, and their lighting.

Lighting elements. Portrait lighting is characterized by: the key brightness of the image, light and shade and color and shade contrasts, as well as the sharpness of the shadow border, which determines the plasticity of lighting.

Key Brightness- this is the greatest brightness of any part of the face. Key brightness is used in some cases to select the optimal exposure.

Black and white contrast is determined by the ratio of the brightness of the most illuminated area of ​​the face to the brightness of the shaded area, i.e., the ratio of the key brightness to the minimum brightness of the face.

When shooting, the cut-off contrast is assessed visually, and on the basis of this assessment, the intensity of the key light is adjusted in comparison with the fill light, as well as the intensity of the modeling light in comparison with the key light.

Color and shade contrast- this is the difference in colors in the brightly lit and in the shaded areas of the face, determined by the color of the illumination of these areas. The color ratio in highlights and shadows is adjusted using color illumination of shadows, as well as the use of zone-colored grids or light filters installed in front of the key light source. The greatest color contrast is achieved if the light sources create shades of complementary colors in the shadows and highlights. For example, if the fill light has incandescent bulbs and the key light is produced by an electronic pulsed light source, the highlights will be bluish and the shadows will be reddish-brown.

Lighting plasticity helps to reveal the three-dimensional shape of the face of the photographed person. The plasticity of lighting increases with an increase in the length of the light-and-shadow transitions and a decrease in the sharpness of the shadow border. The length of chiaroscuro varies depending on the location of the light source and the area of ​​the luminous surface. The closer the light source is to the person being photographed, the greater the difference in the illumination of unequal parts of the face and the greater the length of the cut-off transitions.

The sharpness of the chiaroscuro border decreases with an increase in the area of ​​the luminous surface. If the boundaries of the shadows on the face from the nose, brow ridges and chin are not sharp, the portrait looks more voluminous, plastic. A sharp border of chiaroscuro, for example from the nose, looks unnatural, so it should be avoided if possible. To create a large luminous surface, light-diffusing grids are installed in front of the lighting fixtures or large reflectors are used.

Tonal and chiaroscuro lighting. When the key light is directed along the shooting line from the camera, the lighting is called tonal lighting. If the light source is displaced relative to the shooting line, black and white illumination is formed. Changing the direction of lighting affects not only the contrast and light tone of the image, but also its coloring.

With tonal illumination, the image is obtained in a light tone (Fig. 45, a). In this case, the color is determined by local colors, i.e., the color of the depicted objects.

With cut-off lighting, when the light source is removed from the shooting line (Fig. 45.6), the picture is obtained in a darker tone, with side and top lighting (Fig. 45, c and d) - in an even darker tone.

With tonal illumination, the light pattern, the contrast of the contours is adjusted by removing or approaching the light source to the face of the person being photographed.

On ill. 46a shows that when the light source is located near the camera, the tonal transition is quite extended. As the source moves away from the face, the length of the light-tone transition decreases, the illumination becomes flatter (Fig. 46, 6). If the source is located close to the face, the difference in the illumination of close and distant areas, on the contrary, increases and, accordingly, the tonal contrast of the contours increases (Fig. 44, c).

Color ratios on the face are better detected in front lighting. At the same time, to convey volume, plasticity of the shape of the face, anterior-lateral, normal lighting using sources with a large luminous surface area is preferable.

When shooting portraits, black-and-white front-side lighting is most often used. Moreover, normal portrait lighting is considered the most expressive. It is achieved when the key light falls in front and from above at an angle of 45 ° to the direction of shooting (Fig. 45,6). If the person's face is turned towards the light source, then a portrait is obtained in lighter colors. If the face is turned in the opposite direction, then one side of it turns out to be darker and the whole portrait is in a darker tone.

The contrast of chiaroscuro varies from the level of illumination and the area of ​​the luminous surface of the key light source.

The larger the area of ​​the luminous surface, the lower the contrast of chiaroscuro (Fig. 47, a, 6, c) and the greater the extent of chiaroscuro (see Fig. 28).

Portraits made under black and white lighting are distinguished not only by contrast, but also by color and shade ratios.

There are two types of color and shade lighting, due to the color of the key light and the color of the backlight. If the key light is blue-blue, then the complexion is cold, with pale blue hues, and the shadows are warm, with red-brown hues (see ill. 28). If the key light is yellow, like direct sunlight, then the colors are warm, with a yellow tint, and the shadows are cold, as when illuminated by the diffused blue light of the sky.

The color of lighting affects not only the color and shade ratios, but also the color of the entire image as a whole. If the shot is dominated by a warm fill light, the portrait will have a warm tone. If the fill blue light predominates, the picture is obtained in a cold tone. If the shadows are illuminated with a warmer light compared to the key light, then in the picture when the face is turned to the key light source (a), warm tones predominate in the shadows. When turning in the opposite direction, most of the face is illuminated with cold key light (b). When the illumination is carried out with a colder bluish light, and the key directional light has a warm color tone, a different effect is obtained, namely: if the face is turned towards the source of the key light, the shaded area of ​​the face occupies most of the picture and, accordingly, cold tones predominate (c). If the face is turned in the opposite direction, the picture is lighter and warm tones prevail in it (d). Thus, with color and shade lighting, by changing the rotation of the face, it is possible to change the color of the portrait image.

On ill. 48 shows how the dominant color tone changes under mixed color lighting depending on the turn of the face towards the key light source. If the shadows are illuminated with a warmer light compared to the key light, then in the picture when the face is turned to the key light source (a), warm tones predominate in the shadows. When turning in the opposite direction, most of the face is illuminated with cold key light (b). When the illumination is carried out with a colder bluish light, and the key directional light has a warm color tone, a different effect is obtained, namely: if the face is turned towards the source of the key light, the shaded area of ​​the face occupies most of the picture and, accordingly, cold tones predominate (c). If the face is turned in the opposite direction, the picture is lighter and warm tones prevail in it (d). Thus, with color and shade lighting, by changing the rotation of the face, it is possible to change the color of the portrait image.

In each specific case, when shooting portraits, it is required to establish what type of color and shade lighting is most suitable for the person being photographed, whether the shadows should be warm or cold. Accordingly, they change the color of the drawing and additional, modeling light. When shooting with natural daylight, a change in the ratio of colors in highlights and shadows is achieved using color reflective screens, and when shooting with electric lighting, using sources with differently colored lamps and light-diffusing grids and lighting filters.

Although lighting affects the color tone of the image, the color of the portrait is mainly determined by the color of the hair, costume, and background details. The colors of the costume and the background, as well as the color of the light and shade lighting, are chosen in relation to each specific person in accordance with the intended color scheme of the image. Consider first how natural and electric lighting is chosen when shooting portraits indoors, and then outdoors.

Natural lighting in the rooms. When filming indoors, daylight (ill. 49, 1), penetrating from the windows, is the highlight. This natural light creates the main cut-off pattern on the face and figure of the person being photographed. In most cases, the same light illuminates the background (2), which forms the background of the portrait shot. The larger the area of ​​the window and the closer the person is to it, the less contrasting chiaroscuro and the less sharp the border of chiaroscuro is.

The light-and-shadow contrast noticeably changes if direct sunlight enters the room (3). When it hits a window sill, floor or wall, the amount of fill light increases and the contrast of light and shade decreases, highlighting shadows and the background is enhanced. In these cases, it becomes possible to change the direction of shooting and the rotation of the face to a large extent without the use of additional illumination.

If direct sunlight does not enter the room, then the pictures are obtained in a darker tone. Illumination of shadows on the face and figure, as well as highlighting the background, is carried out with reflective screens covered with silver or colored foil, or simply with sheets of light paper (4). If there is a table next to the person being photographed, then to highlight the shadows, it should be covered with a white tablecloth or a sheet of white paper (5).

On ill. 50 shows diagrams of options for the location of the photographed person and the camera when shooting indoors with one window. The dotted line shows those changes in the shooting point and the location of the person in relation to the window, at which the cut-off ratio is not excessively contrasting and can be shot without additional illumination.

The cut-off pattern and the shading of a greater or lesser part of the face varies from the direction of shooting in relation to the source of the key light falling from the window. The more the shooting direction differs from the direction of the key light, the more shadowed the face will be. When the light from the window falls on the face at an angle of 45° to the shooting direction, normal front-to-side illumination is obtained. When the light from the window falls at right angles to the shooting line, the lighting becomes more contrast. With a further change in the direction of the key light, when the illumination becomes posterior-lateral, most of the face is shaded. In these cases, additional highlighting of the shadows and an increase in the fill light are needed.

Scheme a in fig. 50 corresponds to the location of the person directly opposite the window. In this case, the shooting direction can be changed by 45° to one side and the other without using backlight. The best shooting point is at the edge of the window. If direct sunlight falls through the window, which is reflected from the floor in all directions, it becomes possible to change the direction of shooting and the rotation of the face in a wider range, also without the use of backlight. If direct sunlight is directed deep into the room with the help of light-scattering screens, you can shoot with side lighting (Fig. 50, b, c, d). The screens are placed closer to the window so that the reflected light does not fall on the face at a right angle to the shooting line, but somewhat less.

Scheme b corresponds to black and white lighting, in which the contrast of shadows is enhanced.

The diagrams in d show options for side and back-side lighting. With this arrangement of the camera, two reflective screens are used to illuminate the shadows to the light source.

When shooting in a room with two windows, the zone of permissible movement of a person and a camera expands significantly (Fig. 51). If the camera is located between the windows, then the person being photographed can move both along the radius (c) in any direction, and parallel to the windows (b).

In the diagrams shown in Fig. 51, c and d, it is shown that when shooting in a room with two windows located at an angle, the zones of the permissible location of the camera and the person being photographed expand even more. Moreover, in these cases, not only radial and parallel movement of a person in relation to the camera is possible, but also in the depth of the room at a right angle.

Color portrait photography with electric lighting. In cases where there are lighting fixtures with sufficiently powerful incandescent lamps in the room, LN-type film is used to shoot portraits. When the photographer has electronic flash lamps at his disposal, portraits are shot on DS type film.

For color shooting, the same lighting devices for directional and diffused light are used, which are used for black and white shooting (Fig. 52). Since the best results are obtained in color shooting with less contrasting lighting, devices with large reflectors are preferred, or diffusing grids or frosted transparent plastic screens are installed in front of the lighting devices.

The search for the best portrait lighting in the presence of lighting devices with incandescent lamps begins with the choice of the position of the key light source 1 in relation to the selected shooting direction. Then choose the height of the location of this source and the angle at which the face of the photographed person is illuminated from above. The intensity of the key light is adjusted until the specified key brightness is reached and at the same time the area of ​​the luminous surface of the light-diffusing grid, screen or reflector is expanded. Source 2 is used to highlight shadows. It is placed closer or further from the face of the person being photographed. Source 3 is used to create a back or rear-side glare light. The fill light is formed by the same sources or additional ones.

When using one light source, when it is placed near the camera (Fig. 53, a), the image is flat with a narrow tonal contour. If, however, a second light source and color screens are used, then even with tonal illumination (Fig. 53.6 and c) it is possible to obtain a plastic, more three-dimensional image. The use of multi-colored light sources allows you to change the color structure of the image due to the formation of colored highlights and the coloring of the tonal contour. The closer the second light source is to the person being photographed, the wider the colored tonal contour will be.

The image becomes even more voluminous under black and white lighting, when the electron-pulse lamp that creates the key light is located away from the camera.

Scheme d is an example of normal light and shade lighting, when the key light is created by a source that has a relatively small reflector. To make your own shadow on the face less sharp, more blurred, a light-scattering grid is installed in front of the key light source, as shown in diagram e. Scheme e refers to the case where a second light source creates a colored illumination with incandescent lamps.

Diagrams g, h, and show options for light and shade lighting that differ from each other in the direction of the key light: g is an example of direct overhead lighting; s-side lighting; and rear-side lighting. With posterior-lateral and direct overhead illumination, key light falls on the face at an angle of approximately 45 ° to the horizontal. In side lighting, the key light source is usually placed at the same height as the face.

In front-side lighting, when the direction of the key light deviates from the shooting line by more than 60 °, and the face is turned towards the light source, most of the face is shaded, the image is obtained in dark tones.

With upper front illumination, it is possible to change the rotation of the face to a large extent without changing the tonality of the illumination. However, so that the shadows do not turn out to be too dark, their intensive illumination from the camera is required.

To enhance the light tone, luminous halos are created on the shoulders and hair of the person being photographed using a source of back and top backlight. To enhance glare and halos, light-diffusing grids or diffusers are installed in front of the lens.

The tone of the image changes not only from the type of lighting used, but also from the exposure. The color contrast of details in the shadows of the image decreases when the exposure is greatly reduced, and the pictures are taken in a dark tonality. On the contrary, with a strong increase in exposure, the contrast of the image in the highlights decreases, and the pictures are obtained in a bright tone.

By placing colored reflective grids of red or pink color in front of the lens, you can enhance warm tones, but if you use grids of green-blue tones, then cold tones are enhanced in the image.

Lighting rules. The skill of lighting is to identify the characteristic features of the face, to create the intended tone and color. Moreover, the choice of this or that illumination should not cause undesirable effects, for example, double shadows appearing from light sources of the same brightness.

To get pictures without gross errors and to reveal the desired facial features, you should follow some rules.

When shooting a portrait, first select the part of the face that should be most brightly lit. The key light source is moved until the oval of the face or the area close to the eyes is most brightly illuminated. Thus, a light key is created.

Then find such a position of the source of modeling light, in which there are no double shadows from the nose. So that the nose does not turn out to be too wide, the light source is placed not far from the camera, most often on the other side of the key light source.

The identification of the characteristic features of the face depends primarily on the angle at which the key light falls on the face from above. With an increase in the height of the light source, the shadows in the eye sockets deepen, the shadow from the nose becomes elongated. The turn of the face to the source of the key light is usually chosen so that the shadow from the nose, deep and sharp, does not reach the upper lip and does not cross the line of the lips. However, if the long shadow from the nose crosses only one corner of the mouth and connects with the shaded part of the cheekbone, it is perceived quite naturally.

With a low location of the key light source, a short shadow is formed. A wide and short shadow from the nose, if it is contrasting and its borders are sharp, gives the impression of an enlarged nose. By making the edges of the shadow softer, you can achieve the fact that the nose will appear shorter and not extended in the picture.

Particular attention in portrait photography is paid to lighting the eyes. You can often see pictures that expressively depict the lines of the nose, the oval of the face and other details. However, the portrait turns out to be uninteresting, because the eyes are not highlighted, the whites of the eyes and pupils are not visible.

In color photography, such "blind" portraits are obtained when shooting with artificial electric lighting, when a direct stream of directional light falls on the person being photographed. In order for the eyes in the portrait to stand out clearly enough, it is necessary to use an overhead light that forms soft shadows under the eye sockets, and a screen should be placed in front of the person being photographed, from which the reflected light creates glare on the whites of the eyes and, accordingly, highlights the dark pupils (Fig. 54).

Thus, with mixed portrait lighting, when the illumination is carried out with a light of a different color, it becomes possible to highlight the color of the eyes. For example, blue reflected light can emphasize the blue of the iris and the whiteness of proteins.

By changing the height of the light source and adjusting the area of ​​the luminous surface with a light-scattering grid, it is possible to select the required light and shade lighting for each type of face. Shaders are used at the same time. In upper lighting, they shade the hair and part of the forehead, and in lower lighting, part of the body and arms.

Particular attention is paid to the lighting of the hair. intricate hairstyle always more noticeable in the picture than in everyday life, even if the photographer deliberately obscures it. It is desirable that the hairstyle be as simple as possible, but the hair must be carefully combed before shooting. Lighting should highlight and emphasize the hairline and shine of the hair. To do this, use additional sources that create top or rear-side glare lighting. The top light allows you to create a luminous halo around the head, and the back-side light emphasizes the line and shine of the hair with highlights. The intensity of the key light in the rear-side glare illumination is weakened with the help of shaders or light-scattering grids, partially blocking the light beam.

Back lighting is also used when shooting portraits in profile. Pictures are taken in a dark tone. To reveal details in the shadows, additional illumination from the camera is used.

Effective lighting. Various light sources, such as a lamp under a shade, a kerosene lamp, a lit candle, a fireplace or stove, included in the composition of the shot, create spectacular lighting. At the same time, portraits are obtained in a dark tone. For effective lighting, the difference in the color of the light source and the color tone of the entire image is characteristic. This difference is created using multi-colored lighting filters.

The luminance interval that can be obtained in a color image is almost always less than the luminance interval of real effect lighting. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the light and shadow contrasts. In this case, the contrast of details in the shadows of the object decreases, less often - in medium brightnesses. The reduction in cut-off contrast depends on the exposure. In order to portray effective lighting naturally and create the appropriate coloration, it is necessary to reduce the exposure so that the decrease in contrast in the shadows matches the visual perception.

If you carefully look at the details of the face of a person who is in close proximity to the light source, you can notice the gradation of tones in the shadows, as well as the details of the light source itself. On close examination, even deep shadows are perceived as "transparent". Given this phenomenon, the photographer during the shooting process must redistribute the lighting so as to draw attention to the details of the face and reduce the brightness of the light source included in the frame.

For example, if a lamp or lantern is included in the frame when shooting a portrait, their brightness should be significantly reduced in comparison with the brightness of the face. The same applies to the brightness of the entire background and nearby bright areas of the background. The deepest shadow, if it occupies a significant area in the second or third plan, should also not be darker than the darkest details in the foreground. This requirement for the transparency of shadows and shading of light sources applies primarily to effective lighting "at night", "in the evening", etc.

Interesting results are also obtained when shooting portraits against the background of a window covered with transparent curtains. Illumination of such curtains with natural daylight reduces the contrast of window frames with the landscape outside the window. The main pattern is created by an electric light source. If you highlight the curtain additionally, the effect of combining colored details in the background can be enhanced.

Examples of portrait photography. The half-length portrait of the theater and film actress Elena Proklova (ill. 55) is made in a light tone. Soft light-tonal lighting well reveals the eyes of the actress, dress, jewelry. But the contrasting element of the composition is a black cat, located on the shoulder of the actress. Successfully chosen pose, turn of the artist's head. She looks at us from the front, although her shoulder is extended towards the camera. Only a subtle shadow on the wall indicates that a key light source was used. In this picture, everything that was said about color contrasts is clearly revealed.

The portrait of the film actress Valentina Telichkina (ill. 56) is also half-length, but made in a dark tone and in a picturesque manner. Here, the actress's white dress contrasts not only with the red colorful shawl that covers the armchair, but also with the dark closet. The blonde hair of the actress seems to merge with the color of the tree. The lighting of the face is light-toned, as in the previous portrait. There are no distinct shadows either on the face or on the dress.

These two portraits show the creative possibilities of using light-tone lighting with the use of electrical sources.

The portrait of the People's Artist of the USSR Lyudmila Gurchenko (ill. 57) was made using top backlight, which illuminates her hair well and separates the figure from the background. A candlestick with a candle and a carved decorative vase create additional reflections and highlights on the face of the actress.

Finally, the portrait of the People's Artist of the USSR Andrei Popov (ill. 58) is made in a rather complex technique - a double exposure. The portrait is original in that only the head was shot in a light-tone key, which made it possible to clearly reveal the eyes, the texture of the face and the hair, covered with gray hair. When the portrait was ready, the photographer outlined the face with a blue felt-tip pen, which created a contrasting background and increased the impact on the viewer. This approach is not new. Back in the 1920s and 1930s, the famous photographer M. Nappelbaum was reproached for brush interference with the negative. He applied brushstrokes to the negative and the prints showed light reflections that enlivened the portrait.

Shooting outdoor portraits. When photographing outdoor portraits in sunny weather, first of all, it is necessary to choose the shooting location and the direction of lighting so that the light does not blind the eyes and chiaroscuro does not turn out to be too contrasting. To do this, select several options for the direction of shooting.

When the sky is hazy or covered with light clouds, shooting is done with front-side lighting. To reduce the contrast of chiaroscuro and emphasize certain facial features in lateral and postero-lateral sunlight, it is necessary to use additional natural or specially created shadow illumination. Artificial illumination is carried out using a cut-off screen, an electron-pulse lamp or light reflected from light objects close to the face: sheets of paper, fabric. In some cases, large-sized light-scattering grids are used, installed in close proximity to the face.

When shooting outdoors against the background of light buildings, light reflected from white walls is used. In this case, you can shoot not only with side and rear-side lighting, but even with backlight. Shadows illuminated by reflected sunlight have a warm tint. If there is no such illumination, the shadows take on a cold blue tint of light scattered by the sky. The less cloudy, the colder the shades in the shadows.

On the diagrams ill. 59, a, b, c shows variants of natural portrait lighting, differing in the direction of the drawing sunlight. Illumination of shadows in front-side lighting, as well as when a person is in the shade, is carried out using reflective screens covered with silver or colored foil, blue or orange, respectively.

Schemes d, e, f represent options for posterior-lateral solar lighting, in which intense illumination of shaded areas of the face is carried out by natural reflectors - white walls of buildings, sails, billboards etc.

Schemes g, h, and refer to those cases when the key light is not the sun, but the light created by aluminized reflectors (g, h) or an electron-pulse lamp (i).

When shooting portraits in nature, the question arises: should the background be sharp or unsharp? The illumination of the foreground in nature is usually sufficient to allow changing the aperture of the lens and thus achieving the required ratio of sharpness of the image of the foreground and background. If you are shooting portraits close-up, then the second plan plays only an auxiliary role and the sharpness of its image should not be excessive (Fig. 60). When shooting half-length and group portraits, the background image must be sharp enough to show the environment in which people are located.

group portraits subdivided into official and plot. Official group portraits include those that are taken with the aim of capturing people as a keepsake, for example, students of the same class, students of the same year, etc. In such pictures, it is important to accurately reflect the appearance of all those photographed. Such photographs are important for their documentation.

In narrative group portraits, people are depicted during some action or in some situation that unites them (ill. 61). Such portraits are close to genre photographs. The only difference is that in a group portrait, the main attention is paid to the image of people, while in genre shots, the image of a situation, event, or situation is of paramount importance.

Group portraits are recommended to be shot on large format film in order to faithfully convey the features of each person and illuminate each face equally. Best results are achieved in natural light outdoors or in a bright, spacious room.

Performing group portraits is difficult, first of all, because it is necessary to achieve a natural, relaxed expression on the faces of all those photographed at the same time. To do this, you have to take a series of shots, each time choosing the moment of shooting, in order to exclude an accidental expression of a particular face or an accidental gesture.

Shooting a group portrait is usually done from a tripod, and exposure - using a cable. Even the slightest shake of the camera when taking a group portrait noticeably worsens the sharpness of the image.

Two main technical requirements, which are mandatory for group portrait photographs - high image sharpness with uniform lighting.

The shooting point and lighting should be pre-set and tried out if possible. The placement of people in group portraits should be subordinated to the direction of the key light and the direction of shooting should be determined from it. Only after that choose the shooting point and the focal length of the lens.

The most uniform illumination is achieved when shooting with a front key light. However, such shots are visually less expressive than those that use back-side and background light. When shooting outdoors, the best results are obtained when the background is less lit than the foreground. When performing group portraits indoors, in addition to the front or front-side key light, additional illumination of the shadows with the help of electronic flash lamps is also used.

When shooting a group portrait, one should avoid the frontal location of the photographed people "shoulder to shoulder" and, if possible, diversify their poses. So that the scale of the image of these people does not differ greatly, it is better to shoot from a certain elevation (that is, the camera should be placed above the eye level of a standing person). This makes it possible to shoot with a large relative aperture of the lens, which is especially important when using low-speed color films. The lower angle should also be avoided, as among the photographed there will always be people whose lower part of the face is large (heavy) and the chin is raised.

To achieve relaxed poses and natural expression in the eyes of the people being photographed, when shooting, you should draw their attention in one direction, but not at the camera.

Portrait lighting is a subtle science with many nuances. The angle at which the model is lit, or her pose, can drastically affect how she will look. Tips from British photographer Jake Hicks will help you master the tricks and subtleties of lighting when shooting portraits. It was translated for our readers by Sergey Nikitin, a member of the club.

Jake Hicks ( Jake Hicks is a UK editor and portrait photographer. Jake became known for his interesting color work and flawless lighting work. In this article, he shared tips on how to avoid the most common mistakes and get a portrait like a real pro.

Photography is subjective, and like any other art form, there will always be people who agree or disagree with what I classify as mistakes. History lectures teach us that the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, mathematicians tell us that 2 + 2 = 4. I'm going to cover five key phenomena in portrait photography that I see many photographers believe are correct, and I consider as wrong.

Location of highlights

The first mistake is defined precisely and simply: it is very easy to determine whether you have made it or not. This, of course, is the presence of glare in the eyes of the model, created by direct reflection from the source of the key light.

In the photo on the left in the eyes of the model, the glare of light is barely visible; as a result, the eyes look darker than they actually are. By lowering the key light source below, we get a frame that clearly shows that the lighting has not only become more beneficial, but also added brightness to the eyes.

Having such areas of brightness in the portrait, you give the eyes shape, and without them, the eyes often look dead and lifeless. For example, when creating films through digital editing, such highlights are removed to show the death of a character. The light in the eyes is definitely an indication of life; thus, placing the light source correctly - above and slightly in front of the subject's head - will give the correct illumination and light will enter the eyes, which will allow them to tell their story with flashes of light.

Glare should be located, if we draw an analogy with the clock hands, at positions 10, 11, 12, 1 and 2 hours. If the highlights are lower - below 9 or 3 o'clock - then we made the following mistake - we placed the light too low.

Bottom lighting

Bottom lighting is when light falls on the model from a point below the camera. Think about horror films in the 1960s: to show monsters and bad characters, they were simply lit from below at the time.

Here you can notice that there is no fill light in the left frame. This does not necessarily mean that the frame is bad. But by adding a bit of light, we can bring out a lot of detail, resulting in a picture like the one on the right. Too bright fill light from below will give us the picture that we observe in the center.

The reason this shot looks bad is because we're used to seeing each other in overhead lighting. Outdoors, the sun shines on us from above; when we are indoors, the light also falls from above. We are so used to it that lighting from any other point is perceived by our brain as something wrong. This is obvious and few of us make the same mistake of illuminating a model exclusively from below, but I see a similar effect when photographers decide to use a fill light: it throws more light onto the model's face than the main one. And this often happens among commercial photographers. Recently, even a corporation - the world's leading camera manufacturer - released a portrait with similar bottom lighting! So this mistake is typical not only for photography enthusiasts. Luckily, it's easy to fix: just turn down the brightness of the fill light. For added security, take a few test shots at different fill light intensities, then review the results and select your favorite by checking the appropriate power settings. For ease of comparison, arrange the images next to each other, as in the example above.

A simple little softbox below the model is all that's needed for a small amount of fill light.

Pro Tip: If you're photographing a group of people, pay attention to everyone being photographed. After taking a picture of a man who is two meters tall, for a girl who is sixty meters tall, it will be necessary to adjust the brightness of the key and fill light accordingly. If this is not done, then the smaller girl will be more illuminated by the closer fill light and less by the more distant key light. And guess what? Without changing anything, you'll still end up with a bottom-lit frame.

Loss of the object, separation from the background

This is a conditional error, as it is more based on preference and is quite appropriate for creating various effects, but as a general rule, if you are just starting to work with light, try to avoid it. This lighting technique consists in demonstrating figure and form with the help of shadow or lack of light.

In these options, the lighting scheme is the same, the only difference is how far you, the model and the light source are from the background. You can see how, in the left image, the model almost completely blends into the background, but simply hitting the model's light on the background instantly reveals the model's figure and form.

If you are photographing the model with a single light source (as an option) and she is positioned far enough away from the background, then the background tends to become total darkness, just like the unlit parts of the model. All that happens in this case is that visually the background and shadow areas on the model become indistinguishable from each other and the viewer's eye cannot understand where the object ends and the background begins. Most often, this effect causes the model to become visually larger than it really is.
It's one of those techniques where you're not doing something wrong, but you can definitely do better. If you have only one light source, then move with it and the model closer to the background, so that the background behind the model becomes visible - the effect will be obvious. This technique is incredibly powerful and has an impressive effect on the final result.

Shadows

Again, a mistake that is hard to avoid at times, but always good to know about. Basic Rule for me - always use pure light. Pure light is the kind of light that doesn't scream, "Hey, look at me, I'm using six lights!", but makes you admire the model and nothing more.

The general rule is to combine shadow areas on the model's face. Sometimes this does not refer to the lighting at all, but to the pose of the model. In the image above, on the left, the nose shadow is separated from the cheek shadow. Visually, this increases the size of the nose. It is enough just to move the model's head to level this effect.

If you want to understand what pure light is, look at the work of autophotographers. Filming cars is probably one of the most difficult disciplines in our field. If you place the light in the wrong place, you will instantly lose the flawless radiance of the body, the purity of the lines and the shape. Vehicle masters never use more lights than necessary, but each one is set with sniper precision. I've seen some craftsmen meticulously set the lights for a long time with the sole purpose of capturing the glare on the wheel covers, but not illuminating other surfaces of the car. They are indeed a very tenacious people.

Those of us who shoot portraits usually don't have the opportunity to set up lights for hours. But knowing what will look good and why is useful. One way to do well is to merge the shadows. Fortunately, it's easier than it looks, just watch. In the example above, I used a single light source to illustrate. Each source added to the scene must be analyzed with the same care. One thing that portrait photographers can hold their own against autophotographers is that models move a lot, but if we're smart enough, we can use that to our advantage.
In the left image, you can see that the nose shadow ends and then the light area crosses the cheek, after which the cheek shadow begins again. This is what I call messy lighting: it creates more distractions than necessary. On the other frame, there is no gap between the shadows of the nose and cheek - it turns out a single area of ​​​​shadow on the face, this is pure light. Analyze each additional shadow where possible, move the light and the model, change her poses.

Failed hair highlight

First you need to understand why hair highlighting is needed. You can use it to add some shine to your hair, accentuate its shape, or create a clear separation between the background and the subject. With due attention and care, lighting will help solve all these problems. In most of my work, unless it's a specific shot with multiple lights, my goal is to create a clear separation between model and background. Imagine that you have a dark background and a model with dark hair. It is easy to predict that they will merge. Additional hair highlighting will easily solve this problem.

On the left - key and fill light, without highlighting the hair. There is no technical error, but a bit of highlighting for the hair will add extra dimension to the image. When you add the backlight, be careful not to bring it too close to the front so as not to create unwanted reflections on the face - like in the image in the center. By moving the light source back a bit, we will get rid of the highlights, but still keep the highlight of the hair.

The key point for highlighting hair is the location of the light source. In general, it should be behind the object and directed forward, towards the border of the head. It should be moved away just enough so that the light does not fall on the face, tip of the nose and lips. It seems like a cliché, but look how many shots there are of hair highlights hitting the face, creating an unnecessary, distracting play of light and shadow.

Next key factor- this is the backlight power, and, as a rule, I set the minimum values. Remember that our goal is not to say "look how many lights I'm using", but to enhance the beauty of the model, and in most cases additional lights require less power than you think.

So these were typical mistakes in lighting portraits - they are subjective and you can always break the rules. My position is to keep as clean and clear as possible. Will the extra light add some interesting element or highlight something distracting? Always keep this in mind as you set up each fixture and you'll be fine!

It would be wrong to think that shooting under artificial light requires less knowledge or skill. On the contrary, the expansion of creative possibilities inevitably entails the complication of the process of preparing for shooting. In order for the rays of light from the subject to be photographed to “write” its image on the film after passing through the camera lens, it is necessary that before shooting, the photographer install lighting devices at certain points in the room, “drawing” a certain black and white pattern on the object with their light. Both the technical quality and the artistic value of the image will largely depend on this. And such creative mastery of light is possible only if one knows the laws of lighting, the features of lighting devices and the rules for their operation.

1. LIGHTING

Consider the most common lighting fixtures and the nature of the lighting they create. Modern lighting technology and electronics have provided the photographer with a variety of light sources of various designs and light parameters, ranging from conventional electric ones to flash discharge lamps.

Electric lamps used to illuminate rooms differ in power, and hence in the strength of the light flux they create, and have a transparent, frosted or milky glass bottle. Such coloring of glass of a cylinder allows to receive softer, diffused illumination.

The industry also produces special photolamps, the brightness of which is significantly greater than the brightness of conventional electric lamps, which is achieved by burning the lamp in overheating mode. Their service life varies from 2 to 8 hours, and therefore they should be turned on only for a short time of the shooting itself. Both conventional and perekalnye electric lamps can have an internal mirror reflector, which allows you to concentrate in one direction the rays of light coming from the hot filament.

Quartz halogen lamps are characterized by extremely small dimensions and high brightness. The internal volume of the cylinder in them is filled with iodine vapor, which significantly improves the lighting parameters of the lamps.

A completely independent group are pulsed gas-discharge lamps that emit light in the form of a very short (1\500 - 1\10000s) and powerful light pulse. The internal volume of the cylinder of such lamps is filled with an inert gas, xenon, through which, under normal conditions, no electric current passes. When, with the help of a high-voltage voltage pulse, the gas in the bulb of the lamp is ionized and becomes a conductor of electric current, a special capacitor is discharged through it, which has accumulated a large electric charge, and the gas, having turned into a plasma for a thousandth of a second, emits a powerful light pulse. The advantages of such lamps are small size, high brightness, high efficiency and constancy of the luminous flux; disadvantage - the inability to visually control the cut-off pattern created by such a source on the subject.

Naturally, ordinary household lighting devices can also be used for lighting - table lamps, sconces, chandeliers, floor lamps, etc., however, they are less convenient and in most cases do not allow creating the necessary lighting for the subject.

Pulse electronic devices, called flash lamps, are very diverse. These are miniature lamps of low power, designed for amateur photographers, and more powerful illuminators, designed mainly for professional photographers. In all cases, the power of such flash lamps is carried out from the AC mains, batteries or built-in accumulators. Synchronization of the light flash of the lamp with the operation of the shutter of the camera occurs with the help of a special synchronization wire, either by direct electrical connection of the synchronization circuits of the lamp with the contacts built into the camera, or by a light beam.

Since the duration of the light pulse is extremely short, it is necessary that the frame window of the camera be fully open at the time of the flash. Otherwise, only part of the frame will be exposed and the picture will be spoiled. This condition is satisfied for all shutter speeds in cameras with central shutters and only for relatively long shutter speeds in cameras with curtain shutters. The description of the camera always indicates the fastest shutter speed for shooting with a flash lamp. Of course, you can use longer shutter speeds, but this is not necessary.

1.1. Features of shooting under artificial lighting

Shooting under artificial lighting has its own characteristics. Of great importance is the distance between the subject and the light source, which is most often limited to a few meters. Changing this distance inevitably leads to changes in illumination. The change in illumination is proportional to the square of the change in distance: for example, if the distance between the illuminator and the object being photographed is doubled, then the illumination of the object will decrease by a factor of four. This circumstance must always be taken into account when shooting.

An important property of light - the direction of the light flux, is directly related to both the linear dimensions of the light source and the distance from it to the subject. Roughly, this dependence can be represented as follows: if the linear dimensions of the body emitting light are close to or equal to the distance from the source to the subject, then the illumination of the object has a soft, light-tonal character; if the linear dimensions of the light source are ten times less than the distance from it to the subject, such illumination can be considered directional. Lighting characteristics at various ratios of these dimensions are given below:

The nature of the lighting	The ratio of the size of the light source and the distance from the source to the subject
Soft light-tone lighting without well-defined shadows
Soft lighting with subtle blurry shadows	1:1 to 1:3
Soft lighting with smooth transitions from light to shadows	1:3 to 1:6
Sufficiently contrasting lighting with fuzzy shadow contours	1:6 to 1:10
Contrasting lighting with sharp shadow edges	1:10

What is the practical significance of such dependence? First of all, based on the given data, it is easy to determine the dimensions of the reflectors of the lighting lamps necessary to create one or another type of lighting. So, if it is necessary to illuminate a person's face with soft diffused light without clear, sharp shadows, the dimensions of the reflector of the lighting device should be close to the distance between the device and the subject.

It is for this reason that in special studios and filming pavilions, illuminators with a radiating surface larger than 1–2 m are installed to create soft diffused lighting. Ordinary spotlights provide diffused lighting only at distances of 30–70 cm; as they move further away from the subject, the light becomes more and more directional, more and more hard. The directivity of the light flux of flash lamps is especially clearly visible, the dimensions of the reflectors in which do not exceed 5–10 cm.

To a large extent, the direction of the light flux depends on the structure of the reflecting surface of the reflector. The closer it is to the mirror, the less it scatters light, the more directed the luminous flux becomes. The direction of the light flux is closely related to the shape of the reflector: the deeper the reflector, the narrower the beam of light it allows you to get. This relationship, when using conventional illuminators and incandescent lamps, is mostly hardly noticeable. However, when shooting with devices with short-focus lenses and illuminating the object with a flash lamp directly from the camera, a narrow light beam can cause uneven exposure of the film over the surface of the frame: the central part will have a normal exposure, and the edges of the frame will be underexposed.

Often, to soften the luminous flux from any lighting device, a diffuser is installed directly next to the illuminator, which is a metal ring on which gauze or tulle is stretched.

This method is inefficient, and therefore, to obtain soft diffused illumination, white screens with large linear dimensions should be used as a secondary emitter, used when viewing transparencies or amateur films. In this case, a powerful light source (high-power halogen lamp or flash lamp) is installed at a distance of 60 - 90 cm from the screen suspended on a tripod or on the wall, opposite its center, and the luminous flux of the lamp is directed onto the screen. The light reflected off the surface of the screen creates a soft, diffused light, especially useful for portraits.

Instead of a screen, you can use a fairly large piece of white cloth (at least 60 X 60 cm) or even a light wall. Sometimes, in order to obtain soft diffused lighting in a room or other room, the light of a powerful lamp is directed to the ceiling, which at the same time is also a secondary emitter with a large radiation surface.

The above methods for creating soft diffused lighting have one drawback: the illumination of the object being photographed drops several times compared to the illumination of direct light, which is explained both by light losses during reflection (up to 50%) and by an increase in the distance from the light source to the object being photographed. That is why these methods require the use of powerful light sources.

Instead of a screen, wall or ceiling, you can use an umbrella covered with white fabric as a reflector. For this, dense satin silk or some other sufficiently dense fabric is most suitable. Such an umbrella in the open state is strengthened with a clamp on a tripod. A light source is also located in the immediate vicinity of the handle. When folded, they take up little space, and in the process of shooting they can be easily installed in the right place in the room.

Getting a beam of directional light is much easier. To do this, it is enough to put on a regular photo illuminator a long cylindrical tube glued from thick paper or thin cardboard, the diameter of which is equal to the diameter of the illuminator reflector. The length of the tube is determined by the desired degree of directivity of the light rays. For most cases encountered in practice, a length of 50 - 60 cm is sufficient. The inner surface of the tube should be covered with black paper to prevent light scattering. It can be used as a source of directional light and the lighting part of the enlarger.

1.2. Subject lighting

When photographing with lighting fixtures, the nature of each of the possible lighting options is more pronounced than when shooting in natural light conditions, since under open sky its light noticeably softens the contrasts of chiaroscuro.

In most cases, for the relief reproduction of the shapes of objects, side or front-side, somewhat upper illumination with directional light is used, which not only emphasizes the three-dimensionality of the object, but also retains the character of light distribution that is familiar to our eyes, which is characteristic of natural light conditions. In contrast to this, illumination of an object by directional light from below is practically not found in natural conditions and therefore it is perceived by us as unusual, unnatural. The shadows from the object are the least noticeable with frontal lighting, and most - with back-side and back lighting.

2. CAPTURE A PORTRAIT

Let us now turn directly to portrait photography - the most common genre of photography in artificial lighting conditions. It is quite obvious that it is almost impossible to get such a complex object in shape as a human face with a single source of directional light in a picture well worked out in all details. When shooting a portrait, for the most part, several light sources are used, each of which performs its strictly defined function.

2.1 Features of artificial lighting when shooting a portrait

The source of light that forms the main light and shade pattern on the face of the person being portrayed is called the source of key light. It is always located in relation to the face in the front hemisphere, i.e. the person being photographed can see it without changing the position of the head in space. The main difference between the illumination created by this source is the nature of the distribution of illuminated and shaded areas on the face.

Regardless of the total number of lighting fixtures used simultaneously in portrait photography, the key light source is always the same. Its inclusion leads to a fundamental change in the nature of lighting; turning all other light sources on or off while the key light source is on does not change the nature of the lighting.

Anterior-lateral, somewhat upper lighting is the most familiar to our eyes, and at the same time it best reveals the volumetric shape of the face. Therefore, the source of key light is always located above (or at the level of) the face of the person portrayed and directly in front of him along the line of symmetry of the face, or within up to 60 - 70 degrees to the right or left of the line of symmetry. It is with this arrangement of the key light source that front-top-side lighting is provided.

However, even within these limits, there is an infinite number of points of placement in space of lighting fixtures.

The position of this lighting device in the horizontal plane is also related to the shape and volume of the face. The more the nose protrudes forward on the face, the deeper the eyes are set, the closer to the axis of symmetry of the face the key light source should be. Of course, a lot depends on the shooting direction: the relationship between the shape of the face and the position of the key light source is most noticeable when shooting from the front, the least - in profile.

Despite the purely creative nature of the process of creating a black and white pattern on the face of the person being portrayed, there are a number of techniques developed in the practice of shooting that allow you to set the source of key light in an optimal way. So, if the illuminator is located along the axis of symmetry of the face, its height should be determined by the size of the shadow under the nose - it is desirable that it does not exceed half the distance from the nose to the upper lip and by darkening the eye sockets - it is preferable that the upper eyelids are illuminated with a key light. With an anterior-lateral location of the key light source, its height and position in space are most often adjusted in such a way that the shadow from the nose crosses the cheek remote from the source, leaving a light glare on its upper part. Often, photographs in which the shadow of the nose crosses the line of the lips and the eyes are in the shadow of the superciliary arches look very unaesthetic, although such a distribution of chiaroscuro on the face is acceptable to obtain a certain pictorial effect.

It is also important when shooting and the relative position of the camera and the source of the key light. If they are placed on one side of the plane of symmetry of the head of the person being portrayed, then the more illuminated part of the face turns out to be facing the camera; in this case, as in all cases of front lighting, the volumes and shapes of the face are transmitted in the picture less pronounced, flattened. When a camera and a source of key light are placed on different sides of the plane of symmetry of the head of the person being portrayed, the shaded part of the face turns out to be facing the camera; in this case, its three-dimensional forms are well reproduced in the picture.

So, we have considered the placement of the key light source in relation to the face of the person being portrayed and to the camera. However, shooting with a single light source is extremely rare due to the high contrast of the cut-off pattern and poor detail in the shadow areas of the image. Therefore, in most cases, along with a key light source, another one is involved, the purpose of which is to reduce the contrast of chiaroscuro, i.e., to highlight shadow areas on the face and figure of the person being portrayed. The light of this source seems to fill the shadows, working through the details in them, therefore this light source is called fill. The illumination of the face by the fill light source should be less than the illumination created by the key light source, because otherwise the cut-off pattern of the fill light source will interrupt the pattern formed by the key light source, two shadows will appear at the nose, under the chin and in other places, and if it is too large power, the fill light source will take over the functions of the key light, which can completely ruin the picture.

The fill light source can emit both directional and ambient light. It depends on where it is located. Since we need to fill in the shadows seen by the camera with light, the fill light source is almost always placed in close proximity to the camera lens. At the same time, according to the nature of the illumination of the subject, the fill light is flat, frontal.

The ratio of the brightness of the key and fill light for each shooting is chosen by the photographer individually, depending on the creative concept and tonal solution of the image. Naturally, with a general light tone, the shadows should also be light, transparent, but if the picture is based on the contrasts of light and shade, then the shadows can be thicker and deeper.

To better reveal the shape of the head and the figure of the person being portrayed, especially when shooting against a dark background, one or two modeling light sources are used. In its direction, the light of these sources is upper-posterior-lateral, in the nature of the light flux - directional. In most cases, these sources are installed in such a way that the light flux slides over the face facing away from the camera. The power of the simulated light sources is most often chosen equal to or somewhat greater than the power of the key light source.

Sometimes two sources of modeling light are not enough for volumetric delineation of the contours of the head and hair of the person being portrayed against a dark background. There is a need to install another source of directional light - a backlight, whose task is to create a light contour and highlights on a person's hair and shoulders. Its position is always above the head, and in the horizontal plane it is on a straight line connecting the camera and the model.

Like modeling light sources, the backlight source is equal in power or somewhat stronger than the key light source, and in terms of the direction of the light flux it is narrowly focused. This is explained not only by the functional purpose of the backlight source, but also by the fact that its light, like the light of modeling sources, is directed towards the camera. Therefore, always during portrait shooting, you must carefully monitor that the light rays from these illuminators do not accidentally fall into the camera lens.

We examined the sources of human illumination in portrait photography. It is quite obvious that there is no need for more lighting devices, since the sources of key, fill, modeling and backlight create a solid black and white pattern on the head, face and figure of a person. However, it is not necessary that all five light sources be used when shooting.

So far, we have not mentioned the background and its lighting, although these factors are very important in portrait photography. Firstly, the tonal difference between the background and the contours of the face and figure of the person being portrayed makes it possible to highlight the object in volume, to separate it from the background. Secondly, the background itself, its tonality and lighting can be an element of the image and contribute to the best disclosure of the portrait image. Thirdly, when creating a portrait in a light tone, it is inevitable to use a light background and its corresponding lighting.

Thus, we come to the conclusion about the need for portrait shooting at least one more lighting device - a source of background lighting. In terms of the direction of the light flux, such a device can be anything - everything is determined by the creative task facing the photographer, and the illumination of the background compared to the illumination of the face can change within fairly wide limits. So, if you need to get a completely white background in the picture, without any detail, then its illumination should be 0.5 - 1.5 f-stops higher than the illumination of the lightest part of the face. If the illumination of the background is higher than the illumination of the face by more than 2 f-stops (this ratio of illumination in portrait shooting must be checked using a photo exposure meter), then the boundaries between the face and the background may disappear in the picture, as if the light from the background will draw in the contours of the head and figure. On the other hand, if the illumination of the background is more than 1 - 2 f-stops lower than the illumination of the face, such a background, despite the fact that it is made of white matter, will look gray in the picture.

The use of only pure white or only deep black backgrounds in portraiture is only special cases of organizing the background. Very often, uneven illumination of a light background contributes to a more voluminous selection of a human figure against this background. So, with a more illuminated side of the face of the person being portrayed, it is desirable that it be projected onto a darker area of ​​the background. This not only achieves a greater spatiality of the image, but also creates a kind of rhythmic pattern of alternating light and dark areas of the image.

The specificity of the black and white background pattern is mostly undesirable, since such a background will distract the attention of the audience from the main thing in the picture - from the image of the person being portrayed. In addition, light or dark spots backgrounds can merge with the image of a person, thereby creating a strange and bizarre pattern. Therefore, when shooting portraits, the organization of the background should be given great attention. Remember that a dark object on a light background is visually perceived by us as smaller than it really is, and, conversely, a light object on a dark background looks larger in size. So, a person in a light suit against a dark background will give the impression of a large, massive one. For the same reason, faces with large, expressive features produce a calmer impression against a dark, neutral background.

When photographing delicate female faces, especially blondes, it is good to use a light background. In this case, the general tonality of the image, and therefore the nature of the lighting and the tonality of the clothes, should be light, without deep dark tones and shadows. Such a decision of the picture in a light tonal range is most of all facilitated not by light and shade, but by light tonal illumination of a person. When installing lighting devices, it is necessary that the light, if possible, fills all areas of the face and figure, and by its nature is as diffused as possible. Therefore, in such shooting conditions, one should either bring the key light source as close as possible to the camera lens, and the resulting shadows should be intensively illuminated with diffused fill light, or screens or umbrellas should be used as illuminators, which scatter the light flux well and are comparable in size with the distances from them to models.

Here are a few more tips for portrait photography that are of a general nature. Most people have not quite symmetrical faces, so it is best to shoot them not from the front, but slightly rotated, up to a semi-profile. Many people, especially older people, develop a double chin. They, like people with a massive lower part of the face, should be seated for shooting slightly tilted forward, and the camera should be mounted on a tripod slightly above the level of the head of the person being portrayed. True, in this case, the person’s neck will look shortened in the pictures, however, this has to be put up with, and for backlight and modeling light in such a shooting, light sources of low brightness should be used. Camera placement height is often determined individual features the face of the person being portrayed. The upper shooting point is more acceptable for broad faces with a snub nose and a massive lower part of the face; the lower point is for people with a long nose and a small lower jaw. Wide faces can be narrowed with intense modeling light, narrow faces can be visually enlarged with flat front lighting. Modeling light sources should be installed very carefully, while carefully controlling where the rays of their luminous flux fall. Light from modeling sources can not only reveal the shape of the cheeks, cheekbones and forehead, but also get on the nose, creating an unpleasant light glare on it. This is a very gross mistake in setting up the modeling light. Evidence of the inept and improper use of lighting devices are also deep shadows in the corners of the eye sockets near the bridge of the nose.

2.2. Portrait photography technology

So, we looked at the features of lighting and some of the rules for portraiture when using artificial light sources. What is the very technology of photographing people at home or in rooms not specially adapted for this purpose? First of all, it is necessary to evaluate the room according to its suitability for portrait photography. It is best if it is a room with an area of ​​16 - 25 m, not very cluttered with furniture. The length of the free space on which the background, lighting devices on tripods and the camera will be placed should not be less than 4.5 - 5 m, since to control the background lighting between it and the model there must be a free space 1 - 1.5 m long.

It is best to photograph people from a distance of 2.5 - 3 m. In this case, you can use a sufficiently long-focus lens so that there are no perspective distortions in the shape of the head and figure of a person. In addition, a certain place is necessary for placing tripods with lighting fixtures. Of course, this is an almost ideal option for converting a living room temporarily into a film set. However, it is far from always achievable, and the photographer has to be content with the existing conditions: fix and place lighting fixtures on furniture, and use a free wall as a background. It is simply impossible to give specific recommendations for all cases that can be encountered in the practice of shooting. Nevertheless, one should dwell on a consistent method of installing lighting devices when forming a certain lighting of the person being portrayed.

First of all, you should start with the organization of the shooting location, the approximate installation of lighting fixtures and the camera, the selection and preparation of the desired background or background, if it should have a specific character. It is quite obvious that all this can be done only when the photographer has a good idea of ​​​​the lighting and compositional solution of the pictures.

After all the equipment and equipment are prepared for shooting, the person being portrayed should be seated on a chair, in an armchair or on a stool (the latter is preferable, since the stool does not have a back, which very often interferes with the shooting process) and, having carefully examined the features and features of the person being portrayed, find such a position in relation to the camera, in which any physical defects, asymmetry of the face, skin defects will be the least noticeable. The pose of the person being portrayed should be, first of all, comfortable - the person should not strain internally or, conversely, sit down and relax all the muscles. However, the most comfortable posture does not always look good in the picture, because usually when communicating we perceive a person in dynamics, movement, in unity with the surrounding objects, and in the picture we can view a frozen, motionless image separated from the environment for a long time. Of course, in this case, any violation of naturalness in the rotation of the body, the position of the hands, the inclination of the head, or in the direction of gaze is especially noticeable.

Often a person sitting in front of the camera looks not at the lens, but at the face of the photographer, as a result of which the person being portrayed in the picture is depicted with raised eyes. Of course, he does not have to look directly into the lens. In some portraits, you can see that a person's gaze is turned somewhere to the side, lowered down, less often - raised up. However, just as in life, during a conversation, we look for the gaze of the interlocutor, so when looking at a picture, we get a feeling of contact with a person when he looks directly into our eyes (when shooting with a lens). Of course, if the person being portrayed is turned in a semi-profile or in profile to the camera, looking into the lens in such a position will look unnatural.

After choosing a pose, as well as the direction and height from which the shooting will be made, proceed to install the light sources. You should start by choosing the nature of the lighting: light-tonal without clearly defined shadows or black and white.

For light-tonal lighting, it is best to use white screens or umbrellas as diffused light sources, which should be installed at a distance of 1-2 m from the person being portrayed in close-up and medium-range shooting and at a distance of 2-3 m when shooting from the waist up and in full growth. Once the reflectors and light sources have been installed and the desired soft illumination of the face or figure of the person has been achieved, the background must be appropriately lit. Then measure the illumination of the face and background, bring these illuminations into line with each other and proceed directly to shooting.

To create a black and white pattern on the face of the person being portrayed, it is first necessary to determine the spatial location of the source of the key light. The illuminator should be installed to the face no closer than 1 m, because with a closer placement of the illuminator (even if the lamp installed on it has low power), the face and figure will be illuminated very unevenly, because the difference in the distance from the spotlight to the closest point of the subject and to the farthest point will be relatively large. In addition, a nearby spotlight will interfere with both the photographer and the model when shooting.

In the process of installing the key light, all other spotlights must be turned off, as their light may interfere with the correct direction and critical evaluation of the black and white pattern. In no case should you install all the light sources at the same time - only a highly qualified photographer with many years of experience in portrait photography can do this.

Once the position of the key light source has been found, you can proceed to setting and determining the light intensity of the fill light source. If the supply voltage of the lamp of this spotlight is regulated using an autotransformer, the selection of the desired degree of illumination of the shadows will not present any difficulty. If there is no transformer or voltage regulator, you will either have to cover the soffit with one or more layers of gauze, or adjust the degree of shadow illumination by removing or bringing the soffit closer to the subject.

The next step can be considered the determination of the location and intensity of the sources of modeling light (if any are necessary according to the creative concept). The rays of light from them should slide over the face, and not be directed towards it at an obtuse angle. While there is no sufficient experience in installing spotlights in portrait shooting, you can briefly turn off the key and fill lights to check the correct placement of the modeling lights. In this case, unnecessary glare on the nose or other parts of the face will become especially noticeable and can be easily eliminated. At the same time, it is necessary to check whether the light from the spotlights of the modeling light enters the camera lens. Both a good hood on the lens and light flux limiters put on the spotlights can help here.

A backlight source, if necessary, is installed last. In this case, as with the placement of modeling light spotlights, you should check whether its light enters the camera lens.

Let's briefly dwell on the use of interchangeable lenses in portrait photography. Lenses with a focal length of 2-3 times the diagonal of the frame can be considered the most suitable for this purpose: for a narrow-film camera these are lenses with a focal length of 85-135 mm, for a wide-film camera - 120-180 mm. However, keep in mind that we are talking about shooting a close-up portrait. When shooting a half-length portrait and a full-length portrait, shorter focal lengths and even wide angle lenses, which is determined by the photographer depending on the visual task.

Most often, for this purpose, quite fast lenses, which almost do not diaphragm. The fact is that the excessive, emphasized naturalism of the portrait image, the transfer of the structure of the skin of the face and wrinkles make an unpleasant impression on the pictures, because in life we ​​don’t see such faces. For the same purpose, a variety of softening nozzles on the camera lens are often used. As the simplest of them, a light filter can be used, on the surface of which several strokes of petroleum jelly are made. The degree of softening of the image should be chosen experimentally, besides, the need for intense softening arises most often only when shooting female portraits.

Let us now consider the possibilities of using flash lamps to illuminate the face. Photographing with a single flash lamp mounted directly on the camera or next to it is of no interest, since in this case the photographer is deprived of the opportunity to use light as a visual means - the shooting takes place under frontal lighting, and more distant objects (background) turn out to be underexposed in pictures. Creating a special set of flash lamps in most cases is beyond the power of a novice amateur photographer. Therefore, it is most rational to use one or two flash lamps in documentary photography when it is necessary to capture any moment of ongoing events, and the existing lighting is not enough for shooting.

When photographing with flash lamps, the exposure is adjusted by changing the degree of aperture of the lens, since the duration of the effect of light on the photographic emulsion is equal to the duration of the flash of light itself.

If you use not the direct light of a flash lamp, but reflected from the screen, wall, ceiling, etc., the calculation procedure changes somewhat: the distance value should be taken equal to the sum of the distances from the flash lamp to the screen and from the screen to the subject, divided by the square root of the reflectance of a screen or other surface (about 0.5 for white surfaces). For example, a flash lamp is located at a distance of 1 m from a white ceiling, from the ceiling to the subject 3 m, the reflectance is 0.5. The given distance will be:

(1m + 3m)/SQRT0.5 = 5.6m

When using two or more flash lamps, all calculations become more complicated.

Flash illuminators can also be used in the daytime when shooting outdoors.

From the description of the functional purpose of lighting devices in portrait shooting, you know that a fill light source is usually installed next to the camera lens - this is how it is best to use the flash lamp installed on the camera. In this case, daylight (light from a window, sunlight when shooting outdoors) will play the role of a key or backlight), and the light of a pulsed source from the camera will either be key or fill. But such a use of a flash lamp is possible only when the camera shutter allows you to change the degree of exposure to daylight, and the aperture - the degree of exposure of the flash lamp light to the emulsion layer of the film, which is possible only with a central shutter or flash exposure compensation.

In this case, the exposure values ​​​​of shutter speed and aperture are calculated in the following sequence: the lens is focused, the aperture value of the lens is determined by the distance from the camera to the model and the guide number of the flash, after which, based on this aperture value, the shutter speed is determined using a photo exposure meter. Obviously, in accordance with the pictorial task and the desired lighting effect, the photographer has the opportunity, by choosing one or another pair of shutter speed - aperture, to control the ratio of the intensity of exposure to the film of daylight and the light of a flash lamp.

So, when setting a faster shutter speed with a corresponding increase in the relative aperture of the lens, the degree of exposure to daylight on the film will remain unchanged, and the degree of exposure to light from a flash illuminator will increase. In contrast, if you set a slower shutter speed while simultaneously reducing the relative aperture of the lens, while still exposing the film to daylight, the intensity of exposure to light from the flash lamp will decrease. If the value of the relative aperture of the lens is not changed, i.e., the degree of exposure of the film to the light from the flash lamp remains unchanged, a change in the shutter speed will lead to a corresponding change in the densities of those areas of the image of the object that are only exposed to daylight.

Thus, the use of a single flash lamp in order to obtain lighting effects that are interesting from a visual point of view is very limited and is mainly possible with a camera with a central shutter. As for the simultaneous use of several flash lighting devices combined into one system, such systems are most often used in professional color photography.

3. STILL LIFE SHOOTING

Photographing under artificial light is not limited to the portrait genre. Very interesting, both in pictorial form and in the imagery of the reflection of the world around us, can be pictures of various subject compositions - still lifes.

Still life as an independent genre of photographic art has its own tasks, its own range of themes and plots, its inherent expressiveness and figurativeness of the artistic language. When shooting a still life, all the visual means of photography are widely used - light and color solutions, tonality and a wide variety of compositional techniques. In this case, the methodology and ways of solving visual problems become especially concrete, since the photographs often depict not only objects as such, but also reproduce the situation, the environment surrounding these objects, and create a certain mood. Therefore, the viewer receives an impression both from the concrete objects located in the frame, and from the space assumed outside the frame.

However, it would be wrong to consider still life as the simplest genre of photography. Here, as in advertising photography, which often represents a narrowly focused development of still life, it is very important to achieve a complete, perfect compositional and lighting solution for the frame, an expressive transfer of three-dimensional shapes and surface textures of objects and their spatial arrangement in the picture. Accordingly, the work of the photographer with light must be especially careful and accurate, because only with the help of light can one convey in the photographs a feeling of roughness or smoothness of the surface of objects and their spatial arrangement.

In most cases, a still life is a close-up image of objects. In the pictures, they should look the way we are used to seeing them in real life. And this is possible only on the condition that the texture of the surface of objects will be transmitted through the appropriate installation of lighting fixtures. That is why still life can be considered not only as an independent genre of photography, but also as a kind of studying proccess on mastering the technique of lighting, as a way to improve photographic skills.

Let us first of all dwell on the subjects of still lifes. The attention of the photographer will always be attracted by such traditional items as vegetables, fruits, glassware and china, human tools and household items. The subjects of such still lifes are infinitely varied and inexhaustible. At the same time, often the main thing in the image of a still life is not the topic to which this picture is dedicated, but its pictorial form, the skill of the photographer as an illuminator.

When shooting a still life, it is enough to use only one light source in order to get an image that is interesting in terms of tonality and light and shade solution.

When photographing porcelain products, not only white, but also a black background can be used. In this case, the basis of the tonal construction of the image will be the contrast between light dishes and a non-specific dark background. To clearly outline the contours of the service, you can use rear-side (almost backlight) top light, and illuminate objects from the front with diffused light sources.

The shiny surface of porcelain and glass products very often glares strongly when illuminated with front-side light. Such highlights, although they enliven the image, are undesirable in many cases, since they interfere with a holistic perception of the shape of objects. If, on the other hand, objects made of transparent or mass-colored glass are photographed against the light, with a white, brightly lit background behind the glass objects, all glare on the surface disappears.

More complex in construction and photography technology are dynamic still lifes, where there is movement. Of course, it is easiest to shoot such scenes using flash lamps, but even under the light of ordinary spotlights, it is possible to shoot moving objects or pouring liquid.

Particular attention when photographing still lifes should be given to the background. In most cases, the surface on which objects are placed and the background are separated by a horizontal line, which interferes with the overall perception of the image, since it divides the image into two parts. In order to avoid this line in the picture, you should choose either a high shooting point, or use a sheet of paper or a piece of cloth that is large enough in size as a background. In this case, paper or fabric should, smoothly bending, move from a horizontal plane to a vertical one.

You can shoot still lifes with different lenses. focal lengths- it all depends on the intention of the photographer. Ensuring sufficient depth of field and high resolution is achieved by aperture of the lens to a value of 1:8 or 1:11. To obtain high sharpness in order to convey the texture of objects in photographs, you should use a film of minimum sensitivity, and this, in turn, requires mounting the camera on a tripod. A fixed position of the camera when shooting a still life is also desirable because in this case it is most convenient to compose the frame by observing objects through the viewfinder and finding the best location for each of them.