Capture ‘the beauty of artificial light’ in a short sequence of shots (‘beauty’ is, of course, a subjective term). The correct white balance setting will be important; this can get tricky – but interesting – if there are mixed light sources of different colour temperatures in the same shot. You can shoot indoors or outside and the light can be ambient or handheld flash.
Add the sequence to your learning log. In your notes try to describe the difference in the quality of light from the daylight shots in Exercise 4.1.
Exemplar:
Claire Daley https://myocafotosnstuff.wordpress.com/2017/03/06/eyv-assignment-4- languages-of-light-images/
Artificial Light
The major advantage of artificial light sources over natural light is that you have them fully under your control. There are many tools for changing their characteristics. Artificial light lets you photograph topics that would be impossible to handle under natural light.
The artificial light sources typically used in photography are constant lights (lamps, daytime permanent photographic lights, hand lamps, etc.) and flashes (studio flash generators and flash guns). Taking pictures with a constant light source is similar to taking pictures with natural light; the main difference lies in the fact that you have many more ways to influence the characteristics of that light.
Taking pictures with flashes works differently than taking pictures with a constant light source. Flashes let you produce several effects that you can’t achieve in constant light. Above all there’s the ability to “freeze” motion and to create various motion studies with help from a flash’s strobe mode.
The Characteristics of Artificial Light
While your options for influencing natural light’s properties are very limited and to a large degree you just have to adapt to the light, for artificial light sources, there are almost endless ways to affect its properties.
Light Intensity
For artificial light, you have two basic paths for how to adjust the intensity of the artificial light source directly:
- Setting Light Intensity
- The Light’s Distance
The first path is to set the light’s intensity right at its source. For permanent sources, you can do this for example by choosing the outputs of the bulbs, and for studio flashes and flash guns, by directly choosing their output.
The other way to influence light intensity is through your choice of how far the light is from the scene.
Light Quality
Light quality entirely depends on the relative size of your light source. When using artificial light sources, you have many ways available to control this relative size. The light source itself has a certain absolute size, a light bulb would be a very small light source in a given situation, a large LED panel would be a large light source in that same situation.
Light Color
The color of a flash is usually balanced to match daylight. Among permanent lights, you’ll encounter classical incandescents with their warm (orange) hue, and fluorescents (with a green hue). But today ordinary fluorescents and compact fluorescents are both available in daylight versions. Modern LED panels are also balanced for daylight.
Light Direction
While sunlight’s direction depends on the time of the year and day, for an artificial light source, you can choose its direction precisely to fit your photographic goals.
Night Photography
Taking photos at night might seem counterintuitive to most people, because at first glance… there’s not much to see. Photography is a form of art with light as its foundation – whether it’s film or digital, light is needed to create a photograph. Artificial light provides us with a source of light that’s adjustable and diverse in its applications. Finding artificial light is easy for those who live in large urban areas, but for those who live more rurally artificial light is less abundant.
Out and about…
I went for a wander after dark with my camera and my trusty 50mm lens to get some shots of how artificial light is used to highlight the night and how it is used for the mundane things that we take for granted whether it was the cold utilitarian lighting or the more inviting, warmer light used to welcome visitors.
Reflection
Artificial light is a lot easier to control than natural light. Depending on the type of light used dictates the feel of the image. Whether it’s flat or directional; warm or cold; coming from a single source or multiple angles, light can affect the feel and tone of an image.
With my images I was only using a hand held camera with the ISO cranked right up to compensate for the shutter speed needed. In future, if I need more night shots, I will use a tripod and longer exposure times so that the ISO can be reduced and image clarity can be improved. However, the grainy look of some of the shots give them a retro street photography vibe.
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