Project 6: Photography II Light Exercise 6: Egg or stone

In this exercise we are looking at light again, this time trying to replicate studio lighting for photographing either an egg or a stone. I chose a stone. For this I used the table in my attic, the main source of light being through a skylight above and to the left, and a lamp that I could move around to light different angles in order to reveal different facets of the stone’s form.

I forgot to screenshot my entire contact sheet before I started deleting but this is most of them. 

I began by lighting from the left. This created a dark shadow.

ISO500, f6.3, 1/200s

Light from directly overhead almost reduced the shadow to noting, as would be expected from the sun at noon. It makes for a bland image without much tonal variation.

ISO250, f6.5, 1/200s

Next I placed the light behind and slightly above the stone. This threw the foreground face of the stone into sharp shadow and created a dramatic composition.

ISO100, f4, 1/125s

Here the light was directly in front of the stone, with my camera balanced on top. In contrast to the previous image, this throws light onto the front of the stone and frames it with a large area of shadow behind it.

ISO250, f6.3, 1/160s

Lastly I lit the stone from the right and, with the light from the skylight as a balance, this created a softer light.

ISO100, f3.5, 1/100s

It was interesting to see how the light sources and position of the stone altered the form displayed. It is only by seeing a number of viewpoints that the form of the stone can be apprehended. From one image alone, the sense of the stone’s form would be only partial. A single image is always a limited image, but we treat it as if it were the whole truth. I believe that truth is collective, or, perhaps a better word is communal. Only by many people photographing the stone would the truth of it be neared. Every voice and viewpoint adds a new facet to our perception of reality.