Please lets talk medium light sources.........Photography question.........?

Question

You know the token by the window light - as in beautiful tokens.

So I have a liking (i feel all warm and happy just thinking about it) for those loverly shots of people in daylight difussed through glass windows.

I had a shot of a young girl (one of my y/a friends daughter) shot beside a large window. Its not that sharp and not smoothly soft either, cropped tight its really (what word to use) tranquil in look. It has qualities (emotional, as opposed to technical blah blah) I usually only see in B+W, yet its ordinary digi colour.

So anyway Medium light source is where I'm going here: what are your methods for achieving pleasing to outstanding medium light source images using manmade light, ok I will ask that another way.

How do you like to create a medium light source not using the sun.

Thanks all, answer the question or describe images that impressed you with medium, window or manmade etc.

thanks brian, what are can lights? like TV blondes or brunettes (800w and 2000w) or what sorry im just curious what you mean, whats the kelvin of californian daylight your talking of? is it like the mediterianian midday light?

Thanks Brian

Answer 1

If I understand your question, the light you are refering to isn't direct sunlight through a window, but skylight, which is diffused to begin with. This is the classic North Light of painters.

I don't do that much studio work, prefering location shooting, but my approach to this type of lighting is a large softbox, or, if it were something like a full length portrait, a wall of light using light panel diffusers.

To open up the shadows, a foam core bookend works great.

To create the feeling that the light is coming through a window, French Doors, etc., you can use various gobos, or add a grid to the softbox. This will help create the type of light fall off characteristic of the sources. For the warm light of late afternoon, you can use filters or adjust your cameras kelvin setting to something over 6500 (to taste) using flash. If you are using hot lights and a digital camera, set the WB to daylight, shade, or overcast, depending on the warming you want.

For a more ethereal or dreamy effect, you can add a softfocus, highlight diffuse glow, shadow diffuse glow, or combination highlight/shadow diffuse glow in photoshop. Alternatively, you can use filters on the lens (or in a filter system) to achieve the same or similar effect, with a caveat. Diffusion filters, vaseline on a lens UV filter, etc., diffuse the highlights into the shadows and can't provide the highlight/shadow diffusion.

I use flash, but you can do the same thing with hot lights.

Vance

Answer 2

I do everything with old fashioned can lights and just a wide variety of diffusers. Although I must add, I try to use as much natural light as possible because try as we might... nothing beats natural California sunshine.