الإضاءة والظلال .. كتاب الإضاءة والفلم

Chapter Three

Lighting and shadows

Lighting is the first element in photography. Shadows are an inevitable result of light falling on Three Dimensional objects. A photograph is nothing more than a recording of the surrounding lighting and shadows. The aesthetic value inherent in the image depends - to a very large extent - on the photographer's ability to control their distribution in the image, as they have two vital elements, like the painter's colors.

And the shadows areas are those that do not receive direct rays from the light source, although they may sometimes receive indirect rays from secondary sources that illuminate them to a certain extent, so they either do not reflect rays at all, so they are represented in the photograph as black areas, or they reflect a few of them, so they appear dark. The image is as areas that are darker in color than the high light areas adjacent to it.

Completely black shadows in the image may not be desirable in many cases, but it is most appropriate for them to be darker only than what is adjacent to them, and in which part of the details of the photographed subject appears, and this will not be possible except with the following two conditions:

(a) That it receives a measure of light reflected on neighboring subjects illuminated by the main source, or a measure of light falling on it directly from an auxiliary light source.

(b) The exposure should be estimated so that it matches the intensity of illumination of the shadowed areas as well, even if the exposure is slightly underexposed, not too much.

From here, we find that the contrast of lighting between the areas of light and shadows, and that the degree of tolerance of the Film Latitude are all factors that play a role in achieving the desired goal, which is “the appearance of some details of the shadows areas. We will talk later about the impact of each of these factors.

Shadow function:

Shadows play an important role in photographs for the following reasons:

1- It works to increase the sense of the spatial depth of the image, although it is nothing more than a flat one that is characterized by only two dimensions, so the shadows thus help the sense of the third dimension.

2- Shadows play an important role in the dramatic effect on the image, so the appearance of shadows of the killer’s body on the wall or floor of a room may be sufficient to introduce terror and panic into the crotch (for example, in cinematic films), and it may be used to express ghosts.

3- The shadows may cooperate, either alone or in cooperation with the general lighting in the photographed subject, to complete the aesthetic value in the image by controlling the shadows’ area, intensity, shape, and distribution in the image area.

Factors affecting the sharpness of shadows:

The sharpness of shadows is affected by the following two factors:

(a) The area from which the light is emitted: the shadows will be completely defined if the light source is small, and the shadows will be gradual if the area of ​​the light source is expanded (Fig. 21, p. 82).

(b) Lighting type: The lighting shall be in one of the following forms:

1- Spot lighting.

2- Diffused lighting.

3- Indirect lighting.

4- Shadowless lighting.