Lighting 101
Last Saturday, October 6, Richard Whitbread led an all-day lighting workshop in the RA’s new photo studio. The first half of the day was sit-down, listen and take-notes instruction on the science and magic of light. This included a number of illustrations from the art world (think Rembrandt) and the photographic world (Karsh). By looking at and studying these paintings and photographs Richard provided some amazing “tells” on how to deconstruct the lighting behind a painting or a photo. This included looking at the direction of catch lights in the eyes and an examination of shadows and light
throughout the photo. These “tells” would provide the means for understanding how the lighting was set up and used to produce amazing art. Richard also provided considerable information on lighting styles and forms of lighting: broad lighting; short lighting; butterfly; Rembrandt; low-key and high-key to name a few.
The second half of the workshop was more hands-on, setting up Key-light, fill-light and other lights such as hair lights (3-point lighting – anything beyond this you have to come to Lighting 102). After spending some time with a professional make-up artist our very patient and gorgeous model Simona, suffered through our struggles in preparing lighting sets and taking magical photos. This is my second year in the Studio and all I can say is – I wish I’d taken lighting 101 the first year. Now I’m hooked and looking forward to Lighting 102. Thanks to Simona, Mel and especially Richard for all their hard work in making this an interesting and valuable workshop.
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