Light is Everything, Photo Digest, Nov. 1998





	Desert Bighorn Sheep Working with the light patterns can be tricky. The exposure for this image was based on experience. I knew the sunlight exposure and waited as the Ram would move in and out of the shadows cast by the leaves. I watched as he moved around and would turn his head this way and that and shot when his position would allow a good catchlight in the eye. With many subjects you don't get a second chance so don't have time to bracket and play around with exposure. Knowing what to expect allows you to concentrate on the image rather than fumbling with equipment. Sand Dune Pattern I was trying to find dune beetles and flowers on this morning but the patterns once I located them was better in the light. One very nice aspect of sand dunes is their slope which allows me to play with the light patterns as the sun rises. The sun rises and you move up or down slope a bit to keep the angle where you want it. As the sun moves higher in the sky the light becomes a bit more contrasty but with the dunes it can allow shooting for more graphic lines even near mid-day. With this subject I could have played with exposure and experimented easily. The dunes allow for a lot of shooting, especially these, Eureka Dunes in Southern California which rise over 700 feet high. If you don't get the right angle on one you slog through them to another. Back up & shoot and you get these flat blobs on film, but move in a bit, change the angle and work with the lighting and you get subject interest and excellent modeling light to work with. Light is Everything Copr. 1998, Dan Smith All photographers are dependant on light to create images. It may seem evident and not worth mentioning as we all know that without light we don't have photographs. If you want to test this one, it's easy. Go into a cave and shoot all the film you want without light. Then try it with the lens cap on. Get the film back & see if you can tell which photos are which. See if you can tell if any are over or underexposed. See if you can tell which frames were bracketed. Thoroughly confused yet? You should be if you don't understand that light is the prime ingredient in all your photographs. That without light you have absolutely nothing. That is so simple it shouldn't have to be mentioned here or anywhere else. But, unfortunately it has to be said because there are those who can't seem to understand that light is what makes their photographs. Light enabled Eliot Porter, Ernst Haas, Eugene Smith and every other good photographer to interpret their world in ways that move our souls. To create and capture images that speak with a language that can be understood by nearly everyone that sees them. A language that isn't constricted by accent, pronounciation or prejudice. The language of light as captured on film by masters of the medium. For photographers, light is everything. Light IS the language we speak whether in B&W, color slides or prints or digital capture. Whether you take your film to a cheap lab or the finest custom printer in the land. If we don't learn the language of light as it applies to the art & medium of photography we are doomed to a life of mediocre photography. A life of searching without hope of success on more than the occasional accident. A short time back I ran into Arthur Morris(Birds as Art), who is probably the most published bird photographer in the world. He is known for his use of light to convey the feeling of life in his bird photography. We were talking about those who



	attend workshops in hopes of becoming better photographers. All who attend are encouraged to bring images with them for review, for critique & help and to give those who teach the workshops an idea of where the participants are in their development as photographers. We both have found that the greatest hindrance to fine photography by so many participants is very simple. They don't understand how to use light. The first indication is usually summed up quite simply, and I use my words here, not Arthurs. "Don't you know how to get out of bed before 10am"? Way too many who would be great don't know enough, maybe don't realize, or possibly are too lazy to get out of bed early and get out to work with the softer, richer light of early in the day. Then at the other end of the spectrum they quit photographing & go in before sundown. To take it a bit farther, they don't stay out once the sun hits the horizon and then lose a lot of the best light available. I know a lot of it isn't laziness or stupidity. Some of it is not knowing how to photograph on the edge of light or the fear of failure. After all, low light takes "special & expensive" glass. Photographing in "poor" light makes for more failures and wasted film. But, it makes for great surprises and hones your technique and vision if you learn to work with it. Go into the studio and you find the same thing. Main, fill, background and hair light. Softboxes to save the day and make a lot of lighting "formula" light. Don't take this an an indictment of softboxes or standard lighting setups. It isn't. But, if the basic setups are all you ever do because they are safe and you use umbrellas and softboxes to avoid having to learn to really control the lighting, you are losing out on honing the craft and coming up with exciting images. There are photographers of every discipline who work with these light modifiers and basic setups who aren't bound by them but who use them for photographic interpretation. They are lighting tools, not crutches. Unfortunately, those who really learn to use light outside or in are few in number. When you see their work though, it really shines. This is true of available light shooters as well as studio photographers. It is most evident though in the movies. That's right, in the movies. Think back to the best movies you have seen and next time you check them out at the video store pay careful attention to the lighting. It is used for everything from establishing mood to portraying good and evil. Light sculpts more than the scene you watch, it sculpts, molds and manipulates your feelings. Light on film in the hands of a good cinematographer is every bit as powerful as



	as the finest poetry of Robert Frost, Edgar Allen Poe or the writings of Shakespeare. Light is used to communicate in the movies. If you have seen E.T., you know the scenes that really tug at the heart would be flat & wasted if the lighting wasn't perfect. To take it a bit farther, think of how many images you have taken where you had to bracket a lot to be sure of getting something on film. Now go and check out "A River Runs Through It", and see if you really think the scene of Paul being swept downriver while playing the massive trout on the end of his line was photographed using five different cameras, each set to shoot a stop apart so that the film company was covered from two stops over to two under in hopes they would get something usable on film? No, it isn't done that way. It is done with a production crew, accessory lighting in the form of HMI's, reflectors and by cinematographers who understand how to use light. They learn what the meter readings mean in relation to the film, lenses and moods they want to establish. Where we are often on location for a few hours trying to capture a scene they may be on location for days and have to know how to use the lights to keep the scene looking the same while photographing different actors and views, all of which have to be lit believably. The sun changes position and it goes behind clouds and they still have to have the sunlit scene without compromise. They do it with an understanding of how light works and how their films capture it. It is really that simple. Yes, I hear some saying "they have a big budget & a ton of assistants". They do. But, now look at the "Minimata Bay" photo essay by Eugene Smith and tell me you don't see the drama of light used to tell a story. Look at the excellent images of David Muench and tell me you don't see complete mastery of the medium and a nearly perfect understanding of light. Look at the images of Morley Baer, John Sexton and Howard Bond. Then ask yourselves if these images come from darkroom tricks or if they aren't the result of vision coupled with technique used to interpret the light they find on location. All these photographers, and so many others, are good because they learn to use light to express their souls on film. Light is the same for every photographer. No one has a special light that isn't available to anyone else. No one has a corner on sunlight, shadows or rimlighting. The same quality of sunlight Ansel Adams used is available to you. The same quality of light used by Nick Vedros is available to you. Arthur Morris, John Shaw and Galen Rowell shoot in the same locations with the same light you have if you go there. No



	one has lighting that is not available to anyone else who will work on learning how to use it. Arron Jones with his Hosemaster system even sells what he uses to anyone with the money to buy it. Most won't get his results for one reason: they won't take the time to really learn how to use it like he has. That is the great secret of lighting for perfection. Learning to USE the light you have available. With your camera, your lens and your film. Now I know someone out there is saying "I knew there was a catch!", I have to buy a new Whizmoflex 5 to get those kinds of images. To that I have some simple answers. Edward Weston's peppers. William Henry Jackon's wet plate images. WeeGee's New York City at night. The cry that one has to have expensive gear to take good photos is an excuse. Yes, fine quality cameras and lenses might help, but if you don't understand lighting you only get lousy photographs taken with more expensive cameras. "It's the film!" Unless you mix and coat the emulsions yourself, no one has film any different than what you can buy. And when the do it us usually because they are testing a new film you will be able to buy on the open market soon anyway. The hard part of this for some is finally coming to the realization that the main difference in their work and that of many great photographers is the amount of work that goes in to getting the image. Yes, "f/8 and be there" is first. But being there and having he photo opportunity of a lifetime means little if you don't understand light. How to use it to caress the subject. To illuminate the object. To cast a harsh, revealing and uncompromising light when that is called for. If you light by accident, you lose. Working with light doesn't mean you go to Death Valley with a crew and 45 California Sunbounce reflectors. It is as simple as knowing where the sun rises in the morning and having checked on the angle of a small cliff face that will reflect that early light into an ephemeral pond that may have magic possibilities in the right light. It is as simple as being willing to get up at 3am to be in position for the early false dawn and the incandescent sky that sets the desert lakebed aglow. It is as simple as shooting a backlit aspen tree as the yellow and gold leaves come alive-and NOT underexposing it by two stops or more because you didn't know how to read the light meter. Simply getting out when magic light happens, or being able to create it in the studio isn't enough. You still have to capture it on film. To do that consistently, you



	need to know what your camera, film and meter are actually doing. To do this with confidence you need one major item: experience. My telling you. Ansel telling you. David Muench telling you(and this does not imply I am in their class) what meter they use, or how to meter a scene won't help your results until you try the techniques and gain confidence in them. If you don't know how to meter the early dawn light you waste film & miss images. Over & over & over again. This gets expensive as it wastes film. You bracket way over and under in hopes of getting something. Wouldn't it be easier to have run a few basic tests with high quality slide films(the ones you will be actually using) and deliberately making the mistakes as well as correcting them so you know, really KNOW what your results will look like? Once you test a bit and see just how your film choice reacts to lighting you will gain confidence in both your and its ability in that type of light. You will eliminate guesswork and put yourself in the position to know what type of results to expect. But, it still has variables. All this does is get you close. But by doing so you waste less film, get more good images to keep and gain in confidence in your abilities as a photographer. Remember the Hollywood cinematographers? Dirty Harry squints as he faces the bad guys, but not because the lighting is lousy and blinds him. The lighting allows him to act and it is managed, controlled and manipulated so you see him squint. It is caressed so you see the steam rising to coat the windows of the car in "Titanic". The lighting implies more than you can see. It tells stories simply by being there and being used by those who know how. Light is everything in Photography and if you don't learn how to use it you are wasting film. So how to learn other than trial & error? One good reference among many is to get a copy of "Matters of Light & Depth", by Ross Lowell. He makes Lowell Lights, used in Hollywood and photo studios worldwide. It is an excellent book on the esthetics of lighting. It is a reference tool for the lighting artist. It is a lot more than a "how to" manual. It is for those who can think. It doesn't have all the answers but will raise questions-and point you in a good direction towards finding answers. Publisher is Brod Street Books Publishing, Inc. P.O. Box 41075, Philadelphia, PA 19127 No, I don't get paid for this referral, it is simply one of the best books on lighting



	available anywhere. Yes, there are other good books on the market and it would probably be nice to get some of them. But I believe this one is a great addition to the library of any photographer. After all, photographers didn't invent lighting. Painters have understood & used it for centuries. If you are to improve your photography, improve your use of lighting. Do so by going beyond the 'formulas'. Rules & formulas become so because they work most of the time, or often enough that they are relied on. Knowing them can only help. But at times they get in the way of creative expression. At times you shoot on the edge of light where you have to interpret based on your experience. It is then that a thorough grounding in the use of light will give you a leg up on a good image by taking away the WAG system of shooting(Wild A** Guess). A good understanding of light & its qualities and power will help you in every lighting situation from an Eared Grebe before sunrise to Jerry Rice in Candlestick to shooting an exquisite piece of jewelry. To understand light is to understand creativity. Now, if your talent and work ethic are up to it?