Ideally, the light source shd be no more than thrice the size of the object........The object shd be at a distance of around three to four times the size of the light source......Since an average adult's face is about eight inches in height, the size of the light source shd be around 24 inches in diameter for circular light sources, or the longer side of the retangular soft box.....This sort of arrangement works well for b&w and in certain instances for colour, when fairly graphic quality is needed.
However generally for colour photography, one needs softer lighting, since sensor has much less exposure latitude......TO achieve this softness, a larger light source is required, placed around the same distance (as mentioned above), softening the shadows ....since the area required to be covered by lighting is large , it is obvious that the distances of the light sources need to be greater than that for portraits......As the source of the light source has to be that much larger one cud use a strip light, which is a soft box about 25cm wide and 100cm long.....It is used in the vertical position so that it more or less evenly lights the figure from top to bottom......The light and shade effect around the figure is thus retained.....TO fill-in from opposite side, a thermocol sheet of 5x3ft is placed......
Since the reflector cannot be too close to the model/person being photographed, use a second light source covered with milky-white or tracing paper as closed to the camera axis, so that it can lighten the shadows. THE object of the portrait photography is to make the sitter look as charming as possible.....To achieve the softer effect, the kind of lighting we are using shd not create hard shadows.....However to glamorise the pic, it is recommended the use of a soft focus filter.
Besides the above, more is dependent upon the photographer to experiment and achieve the best possible effect with various subjects/sitters by the scrupulous use of lights available with him, as mentioned above.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
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