Understanding Light

You should have "Camera Basics" knowledge for these lessons.

Position, intensity, color, and beauty-this is light. It describes the world around us. It dictates mood and emotion, time, temperature and location.

Light comes in many forms ~ direct, diffused, indoors and outdoors. There are challenges in every situation.

The lessons that follow will show you by example the kind of light you are dealing with, the kind of mood it evokes and the way to recreate it the way you want it. You control the situation and the mood of the image, you don't wait for it to come to you.

First, let me give you a little background. Light is filled with all the colors of the rainbow. When light hits an object it reflects any color that the object does not absorb. An object's color absorbs any other color that it is opposite on the color wheel ~ i.e. red absorbs green. Fig. 1

For example, red, green and blue rays exsist in white light. When they hit a red object blue and green are absorbed, the only color that is reflected is red. The object appears red. Fig. 2
It works the same way when an object contains multiples of color. For example, green and blue are reflected from an object that is colored turquoise and red is absorbed. Absorbed in this situation means hidden from view.
Fig. 3

Light has temperature also. It is referred to as Kelvin temperature. It is called temperature which means color balance. Some colors lean toward blue, and have a temperature of something near 5000 Kelvin. Warm colors like tungsten lights (indoor lights) have a Kelvin temperature of around 3400 to 3200. This information is relative if you are using color film. If you have taken a photograph indoors without a flash, you will notice a yellow cast on everything that the light hits.

TIP~
To avoid the yellow cast, you will need to use a flash or a different kind of film.

The lessons in this section will teach you how to recreate a specific kind of light on film. They will discuss when a certain light is appropriate and why.

Don't forget with each lesson the
button allows you to get help. This feature alone is worth 10 times the value you are paying for the lessons.