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Photography Lighting Photography Shack Guide

Photography Lighting To Brighten Up Dark Areas Of Your Images

By Judd Walker

Photography lighting is used to brighten up areas of a photographic image. There is a good reason to have dark patches in an image, but sometimes you need to lighten up some of the dark patches to show areas that may not be visible in the photographic image.

For example, you may require photos of the interior of a house that is up for sale and you want to make sure all the good areas of the house are included in the images, to entice the buyer. By placing photography lighting in strategic areas around the location, you should get even lighting in the whole image.

It is good to have dark areas in portrait images as it sets a mood and mystery. But if the assignment is for a feel good shot where everything is as bright as day, then you will need to adjust the photography lighting, to fit the requirements of the customer.

Learning About Photography Lighting

I have loved taking pictures for as long as I can remember. I always took very interesting shots, but they always lacked something. I didn’t know what it was until I want to college and learned how to light a scene for television and movie type productions.

Suddenly, it all made sense to me. Though there is only so much you can do with natural light, there are things you can do with your photography lighting to get your pictures to snap, so to speak.

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It’s not that hard, but you may have to practice, but you can get the hang of it rather quickly with a little practice.

What you should know when thinking about photography lighting is that the lights in your home can be used, but they are less than ideal. If you really want to get great lighting, you want to buy a set of lights that were made to light photos.

Three Dedicated Photography Lights

You can get away with having two of these lights, but for proper photography lighting, you want to have three. This way you can add light front three angles to fill in all the shadows that may cloud an otherwise great picture.

Soft Lighting

Also remember that when you are doing photography lighting, you may want to use bounced light rather than direct light. This means that you want to point the light at a wall or ceiling so the light bounces back on your subject. This will soften the glare of the light.

Harsher Lighting

If you are going for a harsher light, then you may want to use the direct lighting, but for most types of photography lighting for portraits, you will want to use the bounced lighting method.

Just remember to keep the lights out of the photos. This is a mistake that I made quite often when I was learning how to light photos.

Natural Light

When you are using natural light for photography lighting, you have to try to do the best you can. Remember that you should always have your back to the sun when photographing people or items, otherwise you may end up with a darkened subject in your photo.

You should also remember that you might need to use a flash on overcast days, or when you are taking a photo in the shade.

You have to have some practice with photography lighting before you can get it right, but if you pay attention to what you are doing and what happens when you do certain things, you will be well on your way to taking better pictures.

Take Multiple Photographs To Show Changes in Lighting

I always take more than one photograph of the same image, so that if I change settings on the camera or adjust the lighting, I can compare the effect of the changes. Before I do the final shot, I always look at the LCD screen to see what will be on the final image.

You may see a few dark patches here and there and you may need to adjust the photographic lighting. If you want to create a mood, then dark patches in an image are fine, but if you are shooting a group portrait and half the people are in the dark, then you will have to adjust the photography lighting.

Whenever I am on a photographic shoot, I always have at least one photographic assistant to help me with the equipment and photography lighting.

About the Author:
Judd Walker has written a number of articles on digital photography, video and modeling including Become A Model, Fashion Models, Female Models, Model Management, Models Wanted, Movie Camera, Movie Clips, Best Digital Camcorder, Film Director, Funny Video Clips.
Keep a lookout as more articles from this author appear on this website in the near future.