The 90-Percent Rule Of Lighting In Photography

It’s About Absorption And Reflection

You often hear about percentages, sometimes in statistics, like 75-percent of all statistics are made up, which often leaves you wondering about the accuracy of such numbers, but when it comes to photography, one percentage that is accurate is the 90-percent rule of lighting. It’s not just a rule, it’s a fundamental and principal of photography every photographer should comprehend, after all, lighting is the lifeblood of an image and without light, there is no photo.

Mode photo 90-percent rule in photography lighting

It's easier to photograph a light complected model in a light top like this photo of Jenni, due to the 90-percent rule of lighting in photography.

Simply stated, the 90-percent rule applies to reflected and absorbed light. Whatever is pure black, will absorb 90-percent of the light that strikes it, whatever is purewhite will reflect 90-percent of the light that strikes it. As simple as that seems, many photographers forget the other part of the rule, there is 10-percent light reflected from pure black and 10-percent of the light absorbed from pure white. The key word in all the states about the 90-Percent Rule is “pure.”

However, a photographer must comprehend that not all black or whites are pure, though many are close. So to use the 90-Percent Rule effectively, a photographer must learn to judge shades of gray, or all the tones and mid-tones between pure white and pure black. In photography, black and white and the shades in between are not colors, they are tones and some tones are more reflective than others. The darker the tone, the more light it absorbs and the less it reflects, the lighter the tone, the more light it reflects and the less it absorbs. …click here to read more

tags: 18-percent gray, 90-percent rule, absorption, artificial light, background, Black, foam-core, high-key, highlights, histogram, illusion, light, light meter, lighting, low-key, metering, model, photography tip, posing, reflective, shadows, skin tone, tones, V-flats

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The Process Of Taking A Great Photograph

Mirror vs. Mirror-less Cameras Is Just The Beginning

With today’s advancement in portable digital cameras, from iPhones to mirror-less SLRs, DSLRs have been catching negative buzz from well-known photographer personalities like Trey Ratcliff (see: DSLRS ARE A DYING BREED – 3RD GEN CAMERAS ARE THE FUTURE) and many others. Blog post after blog posts are popping up all over the Internet—some even themed EVIL vs. DSLR. EVIL stands for Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens while DSLR stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex camera, but basically, the war of words is mirror vs. mirror-less digital cameras and only the future trends will decide which blogger is accurate in their predictions.

Digital photo of Eleya at a high ISO, low aperture with DSLR

Digital cameras are so advanced compared to film, I was able to capture this photo of Eleya at ISO 2000 with no large grain effect found in film at this light sensitivity setting.

I’m not going to regurgitate what everyone has already written about, so I’m going to focus more on the process of photography itself, simply because the best camera for a photographer is the camera in their hands at the instant they decide to capture life’s moments. Depressing the shutter-release button is only 5-percent of the equation in capturing a great photograph—it’s knowing the process of putting all the photographic elements together that truly makes a great photographer.

As Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100-percent of the shots you don’t take.“ Photography is no different, hesitate in the execution of the process and you’ll only be able to talk about the moment that you should’ve of captured as a visual storyteller. Unfortunately many photographers do hesitate because they aren’t comfortable with their subject’s pose or perhaps don’t understand composition and cropping in order to create a great image. Some don’t even know why to choose one lens over the other or the proper ISO for the greatest impact.

I’ve got many photography tips here on LensDiaries.com that outlines the basics, fundamentals and concepts of photography to help you understand how to put all those elements together as your eye approaches the viewfinder. So like the EVIL vs. the DSLR battle, I’m not going to rewrite what I’ve already written, because ultimately a photographer has to understand what makes a great photograph first, before they can begin the process to capture one.

Often people tell me how easy it is to take a photograph and I have to correct them by explaining that releasing the camera shutter is nothing, it’s everything that leads up to physical act, from communication to correct exposure. So here are a few points of the process that hopefully photographers will consider before they depress that shutter-release button on their digital cameras, mirror-less or not: …click here to read more

tags: bokeh, Composition, concepts, cropping, DSLR, exposure, Fundamentals, iPhonegraphy, lighting, lines, mirror, mirror-less, RAW, rules, S-curve, SLR, smartphones, triangles

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New Year’s Resolutions To Improve Your Photography

It’s About Setting Goals To Get There

Model, Wine Glass, Lingerie, Hair Lighting,

Tiffany helps wish everyone a Happy New Year with this photo. Cheers!

Well it’s that time period again were we say goodbye to one year and welcome in another year, usually with a customary resolution, or a goal(s) to live by for the next 12 months. Many people also like to look back or recap the highlights of the previous 12 months, though many leave out the lowlights too—me personally, I believe in the one minute manager philosophy, past is past, move forward toward your goals.

So I won’t bore you with recaps of the highs and lows, instead I’m going to provide goal setting suggestions for potential New Year’s resolutions for digital photographers—this is a photography blog—so here you have my photographer resolution recommendations to help improve your digital photography:

1. Understand Camera Exposure—Promise yourself to tape your LCD screen with gaffer’s tape and relive the film days so you can better understand proper photographic exposure and not rely on chimping. Though you can view the histogram during your postproduction—after the photo is taken!

2. Understand Composition—Promise to practice the Rule of Thirds for at least one of every three frames you shoot with your digital camera.

3. Understand Communication—Promise yourself to choose your words carefully when you speak to your subject and understand, the photograph is about them, not you the photographer.

4. Understand Posing—Promise to practice the “if it’s meant to be bent, bend it” philosophy when it comes to posing your subject for implied diagonal lines, S-curves and triangular geometric shapes that are more flattering to your subject than straight lines. Nobody really likes stiff poses.

…click here to read more

tags: Amateur, aperture, Composition, digital photographer, digital photography, exposure, Feel Light, goals, light, management, Manual, Photographer, photography, posing, prime lens, resolution, See Light, white balance

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iPhoneography, The New Genre Of Photography

Instagram And iPhoneography Combine For Social Power

View of landscape on the way to Banff, Alberta, Canada. iPhone photo processed through Instagram

iphone photo processed through Instagram--a popular app for iPhoneography.

I was doing some research on the newest genre of photography, iPhoneography, and found a claim that stated, “10-percent of all photos taken in the lifetime of photography were done in the past year due to the infusion of smartphones in the world population.” While I’m not sure how accurate that statistic is, I can honestly say, between iPhones, iPads, Droids, Galaxy’s, HTC’s, and tons of photography apps, obviously photography has exploded to record levels.

Though we’re not talking about an explosion of professional photographers, in fact, it’s probably safe to say there is a decline in full-time professional photographers due to so many people with cameras today (PWCs) along with the dramatic changes in the stock photography business models. Not to mention the world economic woes hasn’t helped professional photographers.

While stock photography is another world, iPhoneography is an exploding new world thanks to iPhones equipped with higher resolution cameras—in fact, back when Nikon introduced the Nikon D2Hs in 2005, the resolution of that top professional photojournalism camera was only 4.1 megapixels. An iPhone 4 touts five megapixels and the new iPhone 4s not only bumped up the resolution to eight megapixels, but according to Apple, it’s 33-percent faster than its predecessor, includes an A5 processor with a built-in image processor with face detection, plus a 26-percent improved auto white balance system.

…click here to read more

tags: Alberta, app, Apple, Banff National Park, camera, Canada, communication, Droid, DSLR, facebook, Instagram, iPad, iPhone, iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, iPhoneography, iTunes, Jack Hollingsworth, lens, marketing, phoneography, Photoshop, smartphoneography, Social Media, social networking, social power, sony, Tumblr, Twitter, winter

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Photographic Culture, Don’t Lose It, Adapt To It

Do You Operate On Automatic Or Manual Mode?

Kara poses for a natural light photo on her first photo shoot with me.

Back in the days of film, you’d find professional photographers prioritizing their time to include darkroom days, shooting sessions, and administrative time. Call it a part of the photographic culture, but, regardless to survive in any creative profession, you have to allocate time to production, marketing, and business and it’s ever evolving with today’s technology. Are we losing our photographic culture in the process? Perhaps the better question is, “Do you operate in manual or automatic mode today?”

Let’s start with production first. In the old days a professional photographer would either allocate part of a day, or an actual day, for processing film and printing photos. Depending on the type of product, such as slides for publication submission, or prints for clients to frame—the darkroom time itself was a process. That process included mixing chemistry, diluting chemistry solutions, bringing chemistry up to temp, rolling film in total darkness on stainless steel reels, the actual steps to process film down to agitation times and methods. Just rolling the film on reels required a special touch and feel technique and chemical temperatures sometimes required tolerance of +/- a quarter of degree, especially for color processing.

From processing development the film would then go to drying while the photographer would start printing photographs from a previous shoot or assignment. It was always about utilizing time efficiently once you made the commitment to work in total darkness or under those amber safelight conditions. Then once the film dried, the photographer would cut the film into strips and “sleeve” the strips into clear plastic pages, sometimes to make “contact sheets” for later review with grease pencils. …click here to read more

tags: apps, Business, chemistry, Culture, Darkroom, exposure, facebook, Film, Instagram, Internet, iPhone, iPhoneography, iTunes, latitude, marketing, portfolios, production, SEO, Social Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Tumblr, Twitter, website

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The Death Of A Great Editor Made Me Feel The Light

The Impact Of A Photo And Some Great Words

Note: We recently moved to a new server and are undergoing software upgrades and website maintenance, so you might experience a few glitches. I am the sole webmaster of this site and most of my other websites, so hence the blog posting delays! We also lost all our Facebook “likes” for all our posts, so please re-like (button to the right of post title) them as it’s important to help keep this site going and going and going. Thanks, Rolando

Photo taken of a custodian by my journalism instructor, Barclay Burrows. This photo was captured in 1974 at what was once called Southwest Texas State University.

Back during my sophomore year in high school, my photojournalism instructor, Barclay Burrow, pointed out to me that great photographers not only see the light, but they feel the light too. The conversation started with him showing me a photo, from the school’s 1976 yearbook, of Victoria High School photographer, Paul Adams. Yes, that was the year I entered high school, but more important, it was also the year where the current school newspaper and yearbook staff realized it was time to focus on their talents after the death of their editor, John Godfrey.

Perhaps we remember things more when a death is involved, I’m not sure, but I do know I’ll never forget Barclay showing me that photo as he felt I could see the light like Paul, but I still needed to learn to feel it too.

Barclay was my first photojournalism instructor who pushed me hard to improve my photography and I can honestly say, this was the birth of my photojournalistic style I incorporate today in my photography.

Seeing the light and feeling the light are two different things when it comes to photographers, so I’ll start by explaining what seeing the light is about. The ability for a photographer to see the light is not just observation of the light around us, but identifying a “swath” or “sliver” of light striking an area distinctly. There are often shadows or other less intensely lit areas around these more distinct paths of light. Think about light filtering through a window in a house, the ambient light in the house is the big picture, but the beam of light filtering through the window or a window with blinds, tends to stand out over all the other areas—this is the area of choice for great photographers to place their subject or to capture that uniqueness of that path of light.
…click here to read more

tags: ambient, artificial, Basics, Composition, concepts, Death, editor, Essentials, existing, Feel Light, Fundamentals, light, natural, passion, QRT, Quality, school, See Light, Sunny 16

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Photography Basics—Three And Four Light Set-Ups

Start With The Basics First

I still remember the film days of the old photography books I used to read, almost all recommended a three or four light setup, usually a main (key), fill, back and background light when working with artificial lighting, such as studio strobes or continuous tungsten light sources. These same lighting setups would often discuss lighting ratios, usually targeted at high-key or low-key lighting, from a 1:1 to an 8:1 variation, respectively on ratios, depending on the photographer’s targeted effect.

Playboy Playmate Monica Leigh is illuminated with many lights during a commercial shoot for Evan Williams liquor.

In these same books, the author would normally include captions with camera settings, lens information, lighting equipment used, specific lighting ratios, specific lighting angles (in degrees) and the distance of the light source to the subject itself. So once, I asked a very prominent photographer and author of photography books from back then, “How did you remember all those specs plus the camera and lens settings when you wrote your books?”

His response, “Are you kidding, I never wrote them down when shooting and I certainly don’t carry a compass nor a tape-measure, and I’m not into calculating ratios, though I’m sure I used a light meter—basically like most photography book authors, I just guessed when it came to photo captions.”

I was shocked, because as an author myself of photography books, all my camera and lens settings mentioned in my captions are exact, as with digital photography today, that data is found in the metadata file of the original image. Obviously something not found on film-produced photos. On the other hand, I’m not a ratio calculating type of photographer, I light my subject/scene, based on my photographic style and I do it because I can see the light based on using the tungsten modeling lamps found in my Hensel monolight systems.

Not to mention, in the film days, I would break out the light meter and check what output each studio strobe head with light modifier would provide and adjust to my personal tastes. I’m not into calculating lighting ratios either, I just knew my main light should meter stronger than my fill light. Today with digital camera LCD screens, we can adjust our lights with an actual visual verification of the image and histogram, thus it’s easier than ever before to make on-the-spot corrections. So all the fancy talk aside, let’s get down to what really matters in this article, understanding what all four lights do, so you can get a great photo in the studio or on location.

…click here to read more

tags: 3-light setup, 4-light setup, accent, back light, background, books, fill, Film, flags, hair lighting, light meter, lighting, main, modeling, monolight, octabox, photography tip, Playboy, ratios, reflector, rim, softbox, style