Skip to main content

The Lighting Tells The Story, and The Story Tells The Lighting

Those who have studied lighting - especially for theater or motion pictures, know well the mantra that "The lighting tells the story." Simply put: No matter what kind of camera or lens is used, who the actors are, or who wrote the script, it is the light that ultimately creates what we see. That is the cutting edge of the knife. However, the more I think about this, the more I would change it a bit...
"The lighting tells the story - and the story tells the lighting."

It is a reciprocal thing. The way something is lit does create emotion, and makes the viewer feel the story through their eyes. We draw conclusions and fill in details based on the way what we see is illuminated. But that moment itself must also dictate the lighting: What quality of light is needed to do the telling? Where would it be coming from? What color is this light? Is it one solid wash, or should it be broken up in mottled shadows?  All of these things are going to be determined by what story that shot is supposed to tell the viewer's eyes. The two concepts work in tandem.
      Interestingly, one of those questions; 'where is the light coming from?' can sometimes be more vexing than needs be. In truth, we probably don't need to get too carried away with the idea that a compelling image is contingent on the lighting always having a logical source. After all, in real life, things are not lit like they are in movies, or on stage. I remember reading of how a Director of Photography on a Hollywood film was once asked where the light he planned on using in a shot would be coming from in real life. He replied, "The same place the music comes from." Exactly. We know there is no light in the middle of a forest at night, just as we know that sharks aren't really out there swimming around the ocean while playing recordings of the John Williams orchestra. We accept that this is all part of storytelling. 

One last thought that comes in - for photographers especially - is the question of color vs black and white. I would argue that it might be best to always shoot the image in color so as to have that information there. But sometimes a shot can become much more powerful in black and white. Here is another example, taken from that earlier photo-shoot seen in my post about creating believable sodium light color gels:

So where is that light inside the car coming from?    Does it really matter...?



















Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Playing With Dramatic Light

I have this image that keeps recurring in my mind. It involves the cold blue feeling of a dark winter and the glowing orange of a firelight. So far it seems to keep eluding me, although I think this is largely because every attempt I have made to capture this "mood" has been done in a hurry, or in the rain, or some other situation that forced me to run through it rather than walk it out. This shot is one such version. I may need to go back with a slightly different lighting setup and try some more. Perhaps in a different location.

It's Not The Light, Its What You Do With It.

Standard soft-light shot with umbrella Snoot light for that film-noir look T his past weekend I had the opportunity to shoot with a very talented East Coast makeup artist, and an amazing model (!)            S ince I knew that I would be working in a relatively small space, and did not want to set up lots of plugged in lights, I used a Vivitar 285-HV speed light and bounce umbrella. Once we got the images we were after, but before we wrapped the shot and struck the set, I dropped a snoot on the light, swiveled it around, and tried my version of a "noir / vintage album cover" look. These are just quick samples of both styles, pretty much as they look straight from the camera. The refined, polished, edited versions will be coming up later - but it is nice to see that even a small and often overlooked "old-school" flash unit can still create pretty impressive light!

Be 'Practical' With Lighting

In Hollywood cinematography, there has been a sea-change over the last thirty years or so, away from "Studio style" lighting setups, to scenes and shots motivated by practical lighting. Gone are the days when a cowboy enters a barn, turns on one single lantern, and is blasted with pure white light coming from 12 different sources. But what does that sentence mean? "Motivating light using practical sources?" It sounds confusing and jargon-esque to the uninitiated. And how does it apply to still photography..?       To boil it down, "Practial lights" are any light sources that appear in the shot. A lamp. A streetlight. Car headlights. The idea being that if you have a person sitting next to a fireplace, or at a table lit by a lamp, that light source wants to predominate in the shot. So most of the light should look like firelight, or lamplight. And that [lighting] element should be clearly in frame. This does NOT mean that you should always rely solely on t...