Understanding Light

Chapter One

In the first chapter they apply that this book is going to build on top of the photography knowledge we already have. They first covered the three principals: effective light size, the types of reflections and the family of angles. The principals have always stayed the same. The main point is to learn about the light and the science behind it. To understand photography you must understand light.

Chapter Two

This chapter begins with a quote, “photographers resemble musicians more than painters, sculptors, and other visual artists. This is because photographers, like musicians, are more interested in the manipulation of energy than that of matter.” I think that is interesting but, I understand it now. We learned how light behaves. Because the manipulation of light is how you create images. The three most important qualities of light source are brightness, color & contrast. Lighting is also influenced on what is being photographed ( the subject) because the subject can transmit light, absorb it or even reflect it.

Chapter Three

In the last chapter it discusses how to manage reflections in your photographs. The three different types of reflections are diffuse, direct & glare. Diffuse reflections keep the same lighting no matter the angle you look at them from. Direct reflections are a mirrored reflections which also relates to the “family of angles” and polarized direct reflections. A perfectly polarized direct reflection is only half as bright as an polarized one. Polarization always absorbs which relates to a dimmer photograph as an end result. And glare reflections ruin the quality of an image. A key word that came up is appropriate, in terms to relate it to the light is appropriate for the object and vise versa. With the appropriate lighting a photographer can produce a great image.