Exposure and Lighting For Digital Photographers Only

Chapter 9. LIGHTING TOOLS AND APPROACHES

In many situations, the natural light on a subject is beautiful. In figure 9-1, lovely sunset light acted like a spotlight to bring out this blossom's color and texture. To create such a photograph, all you need to do is capture the image with your camera. Of course, you need an eye for good framing, focus, and composition, and you need to make sure you get a good exposure, too. The natural light itself needs no embellishment.

However, natural lighting isn't always available in sufficient quantity and quality to produce the kind of images a photographer envisions. When that's the case, the photographer must go beyond simply adjusting exposure settings to record the image with the camera and take an active role in controlling the light that illuminates the subject. Fortunately, a large assortment of lighting tools is available that enable the photographer to add light to the scene and to modify and manipulate both natural and artificial light to achieve the desired results.

Figure 9-1. 

The range of lighting tools available to photographers is as varied as the different lighting approaches that photographers can envision. From the keep-it-simple approach of supplementing window light with an inexpensive reflector panel, to the complex approach of ...