Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search](I get the digest, so I'm always a little behind the posts.) On Tues. September 19, 2000, in answer to a question from Martin Howard, Donal Philby wrote: > Just as an aside, to really learn lighting, I would suggest starting out > with a couple cheap tungsten lights from the hardware store. Shoot BW > fast film, if you want, but mostly, train your eye to see and then > control the light. Until you can control continuous light > instinctually, you will have a hard time with strobe that you simply, > without a polaroid, have to visualize the effects from meter readings > and experience. I totally agree with this. But as for this, > Using two lights is more complicated, because you have to still make it >look > like one light, as in nature. You don't necessarily have to make it look like one light. It is not good to have ugly shadows from poor placement of light sources, but I don't agree that one has to make a photo mimic nature. Look at all the wonderful multiple flash photos from the Milwaukee Journal when they were the leaders in photos for reproduction. Let me offer this quote: "The double lighting is definitely a violation - a violation of nature, if you like. But if it is a violation of nature, I add immediately that it is superior to nature. I say that this is a master stroke, and proves that with genius art is not entirely subject to the necessities imposed by nature but has laws of its own." - - Goethe, during a discussion on a Rubens landscape in which two sources of light can be seen: Eckermann's Conversations, 1827 Alan Magayne-Roshak Photo Curmudgeon