Make Light Real

Neil April 23rd, 2008

Please join me in a meditation on ancient Hebrew scripture:

Genesis 1

The Beginning

1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2. Now the earth was ^[a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
4. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.
5. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Well, where to start with all that.

First do you have any potential biases? Have you ever considered the truth contained in Hebrew scriptures? If you can find truth in the oldest spiritual text on the planet - then you might have a chance with a lens too. Clear your mind of any haze of skepticism and find the essence of these scriptures and how they may effect you.

Vs. 1 is an intro - kinda set’s the stage with the most important summary of all. Connect with God and you’ll connect with creativity itself, more on that later.

Vs. 2 - can you actually conceptualize nothingness? Try it - oops - no you can’t do that, because you exist - I kinda see this verse along those lines. A little gotcha joke, that teaches a lesson. Quantum physics is now just learning and informing us that the mind creates the universe……another very tricky catch22, that we all find the answer to when we die.

Vs. 3 - Ok so we’ve tackled some pretty major philosophical hurdles, what’s next? Well we know a few things about light now in the Twenty First century. We admit to knowing less about God so let’s put it together. E=mc² is the best explanation that we have so far. It’s no such thing as why - but a very nice how. Energy, can become matter if it’s moving fast/slow enough. Pretty cool so Genesis has it right, God created ‘light’ and there was matter all nice and tidy in His one substance. Those ancient people knew a bit of something about reality didn’t they! they just communicate it differently than we do.

Now let’s draw some parallels that are important for our craft. God’s first creation he used for our primary interface with the world. I don’t mean to Kinda tricky how he did that eh? We are created to interact with the light. Ponder the multidimensional wonder of that thought for a while since you’ve now realized that light gives us information, as well as creates the substance we inhabit.

But wait, I have to burst that wonderful thought bubble to break in that we don’t actually interact with the light anymore - we interact with the darkness. Yep, you’re responding to the darkness around you. The darkness tells you where your keyboard is; the darkness tells you where the subject in your viewfinder is; the darkness defines color and shape in your photographic prints. The study of visual perception has been around since the Greeks were able to guess that light came into our eyes, and the first photography book that really opened up my mind to understand the intricacy of how we see was Perception and Imaging by Richard Zakias. It is always my first recommendation for those seeking to study photography and understand building a photograph with visual elements.

So here you begin to understand the levels upon which I developed the concept and the motivation for this site - to Make Light Real

As another perspective on light as a key to metaphsyics, you can watch this clip by Bob Proctor

• Color Theory , Creativity , Inspiration , On Art , Philosophy , Photography Lighting , Technical
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Neil April 22nd, 2008

Robert Mitchell writes a lovely post at the Canon Digital Photography forums:

Catch lights are often discussed but rarely demonstrated, so I figured I would do some quick demos to illustrate catch lights as well as a few basic concepts of light. This is not a lesson or tutorial so I’ll only mention those concepts but won’t go into detailed explanations.

Here’s the setup. I’m using a 12″ blue ball to simulate the human eye. The background is white seamless and the subject is 4 feet from the background. The single light source was approximately 30 degrees off the camera’s axis and about 20 degrees up. Although 45 degrees is the preferred or common angle it simply can’t be done with an 8 foot ceiling at a distance of 8 feet from the subject. Once I established that 20 degrees was the maximum angle I kept that angle constant and changed the distance from light modifier to subject. Read through the whole post to complete thinking through the image below…

Robert Mitchell’s blog has a few more interesting points you might be interested in….

• Photographic Flash , Technical , contrast , learning
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Neil February 22nd, 2008

Bron Elektronik AG - Light shaper comparison is an interesting browse.

Many people who’ve looked into my bag, at the Fresnel lens ask - why do you need that?

And I answer ‘the quality of light’.

Choose the Bron conical snoot, on the left and compare it to the Fresnel on the right!  See the difference in the quality of the shadows…

Doing an exercise similar to that web page is one of the basic components of the Make Light Real workshop, developing your sensitivity not to the amount of light (exposure) but to the quality of light and in a comparative manner is the core of the first exercise.  You need comparative examples because without contrast we cannot perceive.

• Photography Lighting , Technical , learning
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Neil February 15th, 2008

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

If you have any trouble viewing this video you may try the alternate video on YouTube at this link.

OK, OK - so no complaining - it’s my first screen cast. I’m getting the hang of it.

So here’s the finished image from the intro video run through the ONE Action.

• ONE Action , Photoshop , Technical , Tutorials , Video , audio/podcast
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Neil February 2nd, 2008

This cool 3d model ‘light cage’ can help you potentially visualize the position of lighting effect on the shape of your subject. Remember from the workshop how important shaping is to expressing the picture?  The shaping comes from the shadows…..

• Photographic Flash , Photography Lighting , Technical
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Neil January 29th, 2008

Welcome to my series on understanding contrast.

Defined by dictionary.com: Understanding defined in the realm of Philosophy.

1. The power of abstract thought; logical power.
2. Kantianism. the mental faculty resolving the sensory manifold into the transcendental unity of apperception.

I love Kant’s creative use of verbage: the mental faculty resolving the sensory manifold into the transcendental unity of apperception.

I’m not talking to wimpy vague or basic knowledge of contrast. I’m talking about the pure verb of ‘understanding’=the power, of abstract thought. I want to inspire you into resolving the sensory perceptions of your excited artistic manifold perceptions into the transcendental unity of expression. Let’s get down in the nitty gritty past our misconceptions, half-

Gamma, baby yea! (say it out loud in your sexy Austin Powers voice)

p.98 of Dan Margulis’s Photoshop LAB Color —

“The answer to these stimulating questions is the gamma setting. A gamma of 1.0 would mean that the midpoint is exactly halfway between the two extremes, in the opinion of a machine. Most color theoreticians don’t like that structure. They feel, correctly, that human beings perceive more contrast in dark things than in light ones. Therefore, at a gamma of 1.0, the difference between 200R 200G 200B, a very light gray, and 195R 195G 195B will be percieved as a smaller diference than between, say, 100R 100G 100B and 95R 95G 95B. ….This heinous lack of perceptual uniformity, in their view, justifies a fudge factor. The midpoint, they feel, should be defined as a darker grey than the machine would like. ….Therefore, values darker than 128R 128G 128B will be packed closer together than before, and those whose lighter will be further apart. More values are now being devoted to portrayal of dark colors and fewer to light colors….”

We will delve deeper into this topic in Chaper 13….

Well I didn’t start out with ‘this is what contrast is’ because I don’t think you’d get it without wiping away some of the misconceptions that are haunting you and keeping your vision tied up. So let’s get something straight - your eyes don’t see things as they are. Your eyes adjust things to emphasize the shadows.

In sRGB, with it’s larger fudge factor, it’s a darker 54L0A0B. Think about these two numbers, and a surprising secret comes slithering out from under a stone. Neither of these two artifically darkened RGB midtones is as dark as 50L.

Your eyes don’t see things as they are - your eyes adjust things with a midpoint that’s not in the middle creating a gamma of something near 2.2

I think there is a lesson and an observation in the above paragraph and the deeper roots of color theory that go into making the computer systems that we use. First, the observation: “human beings perceive more contrast in dark things that in light ones.” I believe the lesson we need is one in opening ourselves to the transcendental unity of apperception - opening ourselves to the foundation of understanding itself. Another definition of understanding I found says “sympathetically aware of the character or nature of“.

How sympathetically aware are you of your camera’s subjects?

I don’t say ‘Understanding the Darkness to See the Light‘ carelessly or because it’s catchy.  I say it with a firm backing of color theory and the psychological underpinnings of human perception - which we’ll delve into as this series develops.

Finally, the lesson from Gamma that we should take to heart. Our eyes manipulate our surroundings - and so we can feel free to manipulate our images. Maybe so subtly that our eyes assume no manipulation - but hopefully so perceptively that the awareness of our subjects is fully realized.

Introduction to Understanding Contrast Series

First off a tip of the writer’s hat to my college Michael Reichmann who so many times has opened my mind to the underlying reality of photographic image making, I credit his understanding series as a thematic example upon which I will build this series on contrast.

Second, this series is an inspirational and informational introduction to the very powerful workflow action that I will be releasing soon. If you appreciate the thinking in this writing, you will be pleased with the power that is put at your fingertips with this action, and it’s training materials will give you renewed appreciation of this series.

Third, this series is a response to many of the ungrounded and ‘copycat’ threads and questions I see around the internet from time to time. The tendency is to try and reproduce a style or look, instead of digesting how the subject matter interacts with a treatment to produce deeper understanding. Don’t get me wrong this isn’t negative, I learn by copying too, as have artists from all generations. I hope this article fully articulates the full process of deconstruction rather than a few photoshop steps as what I have learned on the backside of copying so that I can create better.

• http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/72157594577686705/
• http://photoshoptechniques.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26378

Have you any favorite copycat threads? Post links in the comments and I’ll check them out and discuss in the future contrast posts.

• Color Theory , Photoshop , Technical , contrast , learning
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Neil January 21st, 2008

Here’s a video of me emptying my camera bag of it’s contents, just for you to see what I take with me everywhere. The real fun one is the lighting case, but that’s part of the workshop - so I’ll save it for when you attend.

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Gear List:

1. Canon 1D MarkII
2. Canon 1Ds MarkII
3. Canon 50mm f1.4
4. Sigma 24mm f1.8
5. Canon 90mm TSE f2.8
6. Canon 135mm f2.8
7. Sigma 70mm f2.8 Macro
8. Sigma 15mm f2.8 Fisheye
9. Canon 550EX Shoe Flash
10. Canon 550EX Shoe Flash

Lighting / Accessories

1. Digital Camera Battery High Voltage Pack
2. Canon CP-E2
3. Canon ST-E2
4. Manfrotto 3350 Baby kit stand
5. Photoflex XTS Softbox
6. Photoflex 18″ umbrella
7. Photoflex Shoe Mount Multi Clamp
8. Pocketwizard (2)
9. Sunpack Readylight
10. LumiQuest Snoot

• Gear , Reviews , Shoe Flash Technique , Technical , Video
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Neil January 15th, 2008

Strobist has been discussing hard light lately and I remembered I’d shot these to talk about later.

Here’s a photo of the setup with my Alien Bee 800 - 11inch reflector, and here’s a photo of the intended result

Read on to hear my comments on the setup and lighting motivation behind it. Continue Reading »

• Motivation , Photographic Flash , Photography Lighting , Technical , how to , learning
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Neil November 4th, 2007

Here’s the exact unit I purchased from Home Depot, even though they don’t have it on their site. This unit I saw on Amazon, might be easier to not have to do any wiring, and you would be able to leave it in any outlet or be able to separate your outlets further! Heath Zenith Wireless Kit with Indoor Plug-In Receiver, White, and Remote Control, Black #RH-6008-WH5-A Either way you’re only out $35 for a gadget that will allow you to control the light output from your camera position and during shooting without moving.Here’s the link to the video on Cutframe.tv

I’m using standard halogen work lights ($10 at any hardware store), and a Lowel Pro light focusable spot light.

• DIY , Gear , Photography Lighting , Technical , audio/podcast , how to
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Neil November 2nd, 2007

“One of those points is that photography is frequently more about light than it is about subject alone. “

It’s About Light according to my old friend Michael Reichmann who is a landscape photographer based out of Toronto. You can read about the upcoming workshops focused on finishing and output that he is hosting.

As this photograph entitled “Lunar Eclipse at Sunset. Death Valley – 2003” illustrates beautifully one of the unique sensitivities Michael brings to the craft. Ever since I’ve made Michael’s acquaintance his engineer’s perspective on the art of timing is impressive. Which to my artist’s mind it totally escapes me how he planned his trip to death valley for the lunar eclipse!

And then beautifully captured it. I personally tend to be an ‘of the moment’ type of person - my ability to create is vast in that moment - but Michael is able to give himself so much more creative potential with his medium of the landscape using meticulous foresight and planning. I’m like hey - let’s go to death valley next month; and he thinks when does the solar system suggest that I go to death valley! What a great perspective to learn from. Learning to become my own yang, I apply this approach to my daily work to a slightly lesser degree.

Timing your light

So here’s a recent engagement portrait that I shot at Letchworth State Park where I utilized the timing of the sunrise and fall fog to capture a unique image.

Details: Alien Bee 800 in Photoflex 60″ umbrella camera right.
Gelled 1/2 minus green.
550ex to camera left gelled Roscoe 3441- minimal power.
Camera held high on monopod with cable release.

• Inspiration , Photography Lighting , Technical , Tutorials , how to , learning
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