This Getting Started Course is great to start with the basics as it is a great opportunity to search and sorted out more knowledge and understanding for the subject. I took this a step further and, made a composition of basic shapes inspired by the course “Fundamentals of Lighting” with Sam Nielson (ok, I was so jealous, I admit).
My simple scene is lighted with warm white-yellow key light and a fill light of cool blue color. In this study I tried to study how colored objects interact with the light and with each other. I also tried to study exposure effects and bouncing lights but, I didn’t touch the effects of rim light or atmospheric perspective.
Here are some principles that I tried to implement:
– For warm colored objects the shape shadows bend to a cooler tint and the opposite, (true when the fill light is cool, like the sky outdoors, north oriented studios lighting, and a warm light like the sun acting in the plane), but not always.
– The occlusions in casting shadows can only be tint neutral or of a warm dark tone, never a cool color shade. (As I understand it, we perceive the red color as the heaviest of all, it has some gravity, and even blind people report that red objects feel to have more resistance, red feels stickier to the fingers touch). Great masters, especially in Expressionism school, painted the darkest dark in the shadows with a warmer tint-not only the occlusions.
– In a strong exposure light scene scenario, usually, we gain in contrast (not always) and the terminator line of an object is more define. The color of the lighten side of the object is washed out and shifts towards the hue of the lighting source. After the terminator line, the shadowy part of the object is affected by the hue of the fill light (in my composition, the blue fill light).
– The most saturated color or the local color of the object is near the terminator edge. This principle applies and for an object that receives a casting shadow of another object. The most saturated color or the local color of the object will be next to the contour of the casting shadow.
– A bouncing colored light gains in saturation but is affected by the color of the objects on which it is lighting , the fill light or another source of light or, of other objects, or even other bouncing colored lights of other surfaces. And of course of the material on witch it is bouncing. A very complicated subject it is (endless IMO)…
There’re so many lighting schemes and principles that I still don’t understand, and I know, that even those that I do understand I implemented clumsily in this study. But it’s a start, like this course.
Leave Comment
