Fresh into the new year we started off the class by a simple observation. We saw something that we never really pay attention to. The observation we made was the current lighting situation in the room, which was natural light that was penetrating through the windows and bouncing off the white walls. Despite the fact that there was no studio type lighting used, there was still some kind of lighting used. Using the available natural light in the room, we had to conduct an interviewing exercise composing for one single shot. Through this experiment we were expected to review and have a think about and understand the lighting and the composition of in the shot.

The view finder was set to black and white. The intent of the exercise was to focus on how the subject was being exposed. Visualising the subject in black and white allowed us to appreciate how the natural light was interacting with the subject and the background. Once our group had composed and framed up for the shot; resulting in a medium close up of the subject who was positioned in the top left third of the frame. In terms of lighting, we positioned the subject a few meters away from a window, which key lit the subject’s left side. The fill on his right side was lit by the scatter in the room caused by the white walls.

The Frame found in the View Finder

The resultant image from the interview

After we reviewed our shot, we felt as if we could do a lot better in composing for the shot. It was assumed that because of our focus on figuring out on how to light the subject, we forgot about how we should position the subject in relation to the background. Overall the exercise was a great to understand the lighting is not limited to professional type studio lighting. The whole world is lit in a certain way, and if we can understand the current lighting situation in a room, we can use it to our advantage to maximise our control of the lighting. We want as much control as we can so that we can achieve a certain desired look.