We’ve talked about lighting in terms of existing light, and how to get a proper exposure. Now, let’s talk about how to focus attention on a certain aspect of a photo. Let’s say you are photographing your great grandmother, who happens to also be Native American. You want to show the lines of her face, so the viewer is able to appreciate all that she has been through in her long life. How to do that? First of all, get in close. Maybe a nice profile would work well here.
To accentuate the lines in her face, place your camera at a ninety-degree angle to the sun, or the light source. This will show the lines of her face in great detail, and give you the result you are looking for.
This is also a good technique to use if you are photographing an old barn or anything in which you want to show the texture of an item. Try it out, and see what you think.
Another technique is back lighting. It is just like it sounds, the main light is coming from behind the subject. This is over-used in the movies and on TV, but it is a nice thing when used properly. The idea is to separate your subject from the background, and provide some nice highlights, usually on the subject’s hair.
Because the light is coming from behind the subject, and toward the camera, be careful about getting the exposure right for the subject’s face. You will need to use some fill flash here, otherwise the face will be in deep shadow. The amount of fill flash will vary, depending on how bright the back light is, but don’t use the auto feature of your flash.
Set your flash to on, so it will go off when the shutter button is pressed. Or, you can set your flash settings to two stops under what your camera meter is reading for the subject. In other words, if your camera meter is reading 1/60th of a second at f-5.6, set the flash at f-16. This way, the flash will be fooled into thinking that there is less light coming in, which is what you want.
If you are looking for a silhouette, place the light behind the subject, but point it toward the background instead of the subject.
The last technique for lighting a subject is the standard portrait lighting. Since this is probably the technique most of you use most often, for family portraits and such, I will cover it in more detail.