Behind the Lens

4.24Adventures in Lighting, Part IV—Eternal Flame

A shot of model Becka Adams lit purely by the road flare she’s holding.

Stanley Kubrick, the famous introverted filmmaker, wanted to shoot his baroque-style drama, Barry Lyndon, as realistically as possible—including the use of candles as the only means of illumination at night, as would be historically accurate. In 1975, the year he shot the film, this was an extraordinary technological achievement for cinematographer John Alcott, BSC. To accomplish this seemingly impossible feat, Kubrick scoured the globe looking for exotic super-fast lenses. He procured a trio of 50mm Zeiss f/0.7 lenses and ...