Thursday, November 10, 2005
First Blog Post--Old Master's Paintings Style
Just getting started, mostly exploring and puttering, definitely not settled on a single direction or focus (for this blog, I mean, and maybe more).
What's a blog good for? -- public diary, forum to explore and promote my interests, or maybe just a great diversion. ??
Anyway, there's clearly lots of exciting potential in this medium, so I'm glad to be starting, and since I don't know where I'm going with this, it's all possibility. Open possibilities--no visible limits. That is exciting.
One of my interests in my longtime career as a cameraman, is lighting. Viewing what natural and manmade lights do when they illuminate people and objects, and exploring how these can be worked with to create and finesse images.
Here's something I posted this morning on a local listserve here in Dallas, responding to a question from a film student about how to light her interviewees for a documentary she's beginning.
LIGHTING - Old Master's Paintings Style - ADVICE NEEDED
What Jim said is correct, but I would say it a little differently regarding “single strong point source light on the key side”.
The key should be strong in the sense that it is dominant in the scene, but a candle flame can be just as dominant in the scene as full sunlight, if there’s nothing else to illuminate the scene. Of course you need adequate exposure for your camera system (NO gain).
In fact a candle can be effectively “stronger” than the sun, because direct sunlight usually is accompanied by bluish fill light, from the rest of the sky (usually about 3 stops lower than the “key” from the sun).
For “Chiarascuro” the key should be set at a low angle, and extremely to the side, so if your subject were a sphere, only half or less of it would be lit, and the dark side is very dark, nearly black with very little fill light. Normally this will be in a dark room, where the only light source is the key, and perhaps a very low fill light, and perhaps a back light on the subject, and a low level background light. I’d start by setting the key to work, keep it off the background, and only add anything else if necessary.
The choice of background will be important—generally you’ll want it to be dark. One fashionable look employed in docs is a relatively extreme side key on the subject, against a totally black background, like a flat black cloth.
Rather than a pointsource, the key itself can actually be a softlight, to simulate “north light”. (The “Old Masters” studios had large windows on the North side, that gave a very large softlight from the skylight). What makes it “chiaroscuro” is the angle of the key extremely to the side, with dark background, and little or no fill.
What's a blog good for? -- public diary, forum to explore and promote my interests, or maybe just a great diversion. ??
Anyway, there's clearly lots of exciting potential in this medium, so I'm glad to be starting, and since I don't know where I'm going with this, it's all possibility. Open possibilities--no visible limits. That is exciting.
One of my interests in my longtime career as a cameraman, is lighting. Viewing what natural and manmade lights do when they illuminate people and objects, and exploring how these can be worked with to create and finesse images.
Here's something I posted this morning on a local listserve here in Dallas, responding to a question from a film student about how to light her interviewees for a documentary she's beginning.
LIGHTING - Old Master's Paintings Style - ADVICE NEEDED
What Jim said is correct, but I would say it a little differently regarding “single strong point source light on the key side”.
The key should be strong in the sense that it is dominant in the scene, but a candle flame can be just as dominant in the scene as full sunlight, if there’s nothing else to illuminate the scene. Of course you need adequate exposure for your camera system (NO gain).
In fact a candle can be effectively “stronger” than the sun, because direct sunlight usually is accompanied by bluish fill light, from the rest of the sky (usually about 3 stops lower than the “key” from the sun).
For “Chiarascuro” the key should be set at a low angle, and extremely to the side, so if your subject were a sphere, only half or less of it would be lit, and the dark side is very dark, nearly black with very little fill light. Normally this will be in a dark room, where the only light source is the key, and perhaps a very low fill light, and perhaps a back light on the subject, and a low level background light. I’d start by setting the key to work, keep it off the background, and only add anything else if necessary.
The choice of background will be important—generally you’ll want it to be dark. One fashionable look employed in docs is a relatively extreme side key on the subject, against a totally black background, like a flat black cloth.
Rather than a pointsource, the key itself can actually be a softlight, to simulate “north light”. (The “Old Masters” studios had large windows on the North side, that gave a very large softlight from the skylight). What makes it “chiaroscuro” is the angle of the key extremely to the side, with dark background, and little or no fill.
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