Project 52 - Week 24: Front Light - Side Light

While light is a key ingredient in photography, it goes without saying that shadows give depth and life to a photo.  This week we experimented mostly with side light, but needed to examine front light from two perspectives -- the boring perspective and the interesting perspective.

I went back in time and found these two photos of our cat, Barney.  They were taken in our barn.  Front light played a large role in each image.  Barney is a handsome guy, so he is a saving grace in these two photographs, but essentially (even with the depth of field adding a bit of dimension here) the photos are somewhat flat.  Flatness, our author notes, is one of the dilemmas of front lighting.

In the case above, I did not use any flash (on or off camera), but just the natural light streaming through the barn door, which was behind me and behind my camera.  If we are speaking technically, the natural light acted as both my key light and my fill light and the ratio here would be 1:1.

In contrast to these two photos, let me show you one of the photos I took this week, using front lighting in a different way.

In this photo, Barney is also lit--by the natural light of the day--from the front.  However, instead of me standing between him and that light, I am standing off to the side.  You can see a little bit of shadow coming from his hind paws, and off the sheltered side of the glider, and even though the lighting is still, technically, 1:1, he looks more than one dimensional here and quite a bit more interesting in both his expression and his intent.  If you think them through and experiment a bit, front lit photos do not need to be boring and flat. (And, yes, this is our favorite yard glider/swing.  It's also Barney's favorite and he often sleeps there when he is outside.)

Now, let's take a look at side light.  First this photo, also taken this week, but in a different location, just outside our front entrance door. Unfortunately, we did not have the kind of sun this week that throws dramatic shadows.

Besides that fact, it's been my experience that it is very hard to get a cat to turn exactly to the angle you would like him or her to be in, in order to take experimental photos.  Our front entrance is shaded at the time of day I took this photo, but I used off camera flash bounced off an umbrella to help me out (playing the role of my key light) and the natural ambient light of the day as my fill light.  I placed the flash to Barney's right (our left looking at the photo), but not exactly in the correct position, which is the reason you can see the spill over onto his left (our right) eye and near his nose on that side.

There are, however, some soft shadows to his left (our right), down his left ear-to-neck area, and under his chin, which helps to make him more of a dimensional character and not simply a snapshot of a cat.  If you think back to last week and my photos of Roo in the field, the one where he is covered in dirt from a good roll, is a classic example of side light.

One more try is below, with both flash and Barney moved a bit to a better angle.

You can now see the shadowing off of Barney's left side, how his left eye is also darker and the shadow that runs down his chest area, all of which makes this photo somewhat dramatic and intriguing.  Barney is really a good egg for having sat this long and for putting up with me and my movement of light stand and porch objects.  He is the only cat we own who will pose for me with some consistency.

Now off we go into the blog loop to see what others have done this week with front and side light.  Start here with Cahlean Klenke of About A Dog Photography in St. Cloud and Central MN.  Enjoy!