 |  Author : Fil Hunter Edition : 3rd Number of Pages : 320 Publisher : Focal Press List Price: Our Price: $30.00 You Save: $11.95 (29%) Used Price : $15.18 |
Product Description
An amazing (and some would say magical) resource on photographic lighting that has been talked about in the community and recommended for years. This highly respected guide has been thoroughly updated and revised for content and design - it is now produced in full color! It introduces a logical theory of photographic lighting so if you are starting out in photography you will learn how to predict results before setting up lights. This is not primarily a how-to book with only set examples for you to copy. Rather, Light: Science and Magic provides you with a comprehensive theory of the nature and principles of light to allow you to use lighting to express your own creativity.Numerous photographs and illustrations provide clear examples of the theories, while sidebars highlight special lighting questions. Expanded chapters on available light in portraiture, as well as new information on digital equipment and terminology make this a must have update!
*New four color art package with contemporary lighting examples
*Based on the behaviour of light
*Theory book for serious photographers
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: A Letter from Fil Hunter, Paul Fuqua, and Steven Biver, authors of Light--Science & Magic, on Lighting
We photographers now live in a gadget-based world. If you don’t believe me, just look at the Web or any photography magazine. What do you see but item after item extolling the virtue of this or that gizmo?
The lighting side of picture making is no exception. In fact it has become so intense that a huge proportion of questions I’m asked are of the “How can I work without a . . . ?” or “Will I ever be able to make good portraits without a . . . ?”
Fortunately two sentences written for the first edition of Light--Science & Magic some 25 years ago by our co-author, Fil Hunter are just as relevant today as they were then, a quarter of a century ago:
- “No photographer has enough lighting equipment to do every assignment as well as possible." and “Most photographers have enough equipment to do almost every assignment well.”
To put those two pithy lines another way, it’s what you do with what you’ve got that counts.
Sure, there most certainly are those times when the newest and niftiest piece of gear would make life a lot easier. But if you can’t afford it, don’t go out and shoot yourself. Instead, start trying to figure out a different way of getting the job done.
You’ll be amazed at how many times you can.
--Fil Hunter, Paul Fuqua, and Steven Biver
Amazon Exclusive: An Example from Paul Fuqua, One of the Authors of Light--Science & Magic, on Lighting
For the most part, my co-author, Steven, and I specialize in very different kinds of photography. Steven usually works using lights. I almost always work with only the ambient light I find where I’m shooting.
But as different as these two ways of working are, the approaches we use to lighting our subjects are almost identical. That’s because no matter where you find it or what its sources may be, light always behaves in certain predictable ways.
Take this portrait of my friend Howard. To make it I moved him into the “open” shade of a nearby barn. This flooded him with the kind of softly diffused light I had pre-visualized for the picture.
I then positioned Howard close to the edge of the barn’s shadow. This allowed a small number of the sun’s brighter rays to fall on the camera right side of his face.
The result of this slightly uneven lighting was twofold. First, Howard’s facial features were nicely modeled and second, the diffused light prevented any unattractive hard-edged shadows on it.
What’s important about the above is that I was able to use the ambient light I found on a location to make this portrait using exactly the same basic approach that Steven could use to produce identical looking lighting using studio strobes. Simply put, light is light, and it always follows the same laws of nature wherever it is and whatever produces it.
And that’s exactly what Light--Science & Magic is all about.
-- Paul Fuqua
Featured Photographs from the Authors of Light--Science & Magic
Featured Excerpts from Light--Science & Magic
Read a few sample pages on how the cover was made. [PDF]
Read a few sample pages on how to photograph glass. [PDF]
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