Backlighting


breakin the law! breakin the law!


Well, one of the things I learned in photography classes was to always watch out for flare from a backlight. Flare tends to reduce contrast and so most wide lenses ship with lens hoods and are specially designed to minimize flare. Flare is bad! Or sometimes, flare is good Mr. fancy pants college teacher! Having been inspired by Jeremy Cowart's creative use of backlighting, I've been fiddling with backlight and am learning to have fun with it. Tip: Flare happens with a specular light source as opposed to a diffuse light source. ie: instead of a softbox, use a bare light bulb. The only source of lighting in these pictures is a single 80 watt light bulb (from the grocery store) directly behind the subject. No front lighting whatsoever. So today's rule is: sometimes the rules are wrong. Today's assignment: 30 shots using a backlight. go.

Yes. I had a photography class. I think I got a C. Actually though if it wasn't for the photo class, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. There was a very wonderful hipster girl named Jane who introduced me to electronic music in the darkroom one day. She was so wonderfully out of my league I didn't even aspire to have a crush on her. A couple months later, I played her something I was working on, inspired by the bands she liked. She asked who it was. I said it was me. The look in her eyes right then pretty much launched my career. Alas, I never had the courage to ask her out. Does money make the world go round? No. Love does.

Posted: Mon - November 7, 2005 at 03:39 AM          

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