B&W kids portrait
Maarten
My first photo on Photosig (a portrait), interested in your remarks:
http://www.photosig.com/go/photos/view?id=1027384
Greetings,
Maarten
zeitgeist
>
> My first photo on Photosig (a portrait), interested in your remarks:
>
> http://www.photosig.com/go/photos/view?id=1027384
>
cute but fuzzy
Mxsmanic
> My first photo on Photosig (a portrait), interested in your remarks:
>
> http://www.photosig.com/go/photos/view?id=1027384
Great shot. The style looks a bit like the olden days (50s or 60s),
though--is that deliberate or accidental?
--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.
PLB49
Oh no! My adolescence was in the olden days!
Paul B.
Maarten
>though--is that deliberate or accidental?
deliberate as far as the "B&W part" contributes to that feeling...
;-)
Meaning I shot B&W on purpose, but did not really try to shoot a photo
from a past era..
Ciao
M
Michael Scarpitti
The moment you captured is quite nice. Technically, however, the photo
is deficient on several levels.
1. The lighting is unflattering.
2. The photo is not nearly sharp eneough to pass muster
There should be a hair light behind the subject to separate the
background and foreground.
The predominant light in a portrait should almost always be from the
left (as the viewer sees it, or from the right of the person being
photographed.) It makes me very irritated to see the light coming from
the right.
Here, the light is coming from every which way, and the multiplicity
of shadows is very confusing. You should use two lights in front (main
and fill) and one in back (hair), and that's ALL.
J C
Scarpitti) wrote:
>The moment you captured is quite nice. Technically, however, the photo
>is deficient on several levels.
>
>1. The lighting is unflattering.
>2. The photo is not nearly sharp eneough to pass muster
>
>There should be a hair light behind the subject to separate the
>background and foreground.
>
>The predominant light in a portrait should almost always be from the
>left (as the viewer sees it, or from the right of the person being
>photographed.) It makes me very irritated to see the light coming from
>the right.
>
>Here, the light is coming from every which way, and the multiplicity
>of shadows is very confusing. You should use two lights in front (main
>and fill) and one in back (hair), and that's ALL.
In the above comments I'd agree that the image is not sharp enough.
I would add that part of the reason is that the tonal range is rather
short. Though there look like there might be some solid blacks (in the
hair there don't look like there are any pure whites (which should be
in the highlights of the eyes).
This image would benefit from being printed on a higher contract grade
of paper.
But as for the lighting source, I respectfully disagree with Mike
Scarpitti's assessment. None of those things about light direction
should be considered hard and fast rules.
By the way -- MIKE -- could you post a url to some of your pics. I've
read a lot of your posts in this and other groups and would like to
see samples of your work. Thanks.
-- JC
J C
>This image would benefit from being printed on a higher contract grade
>of paper.
>
Err, "... higher CONTRAST grade..."
-- JC
Michael Scarpitti
Michael Scarpitti
Not absolute rules, but the human brain is programmed to see a single
shadow from a single light sourse: the sun. It's inherently
unflattering to see mutiple light sources that cast multiple shadows
of near-equal strength on faces, and that's what I don't like here.
Almost all Renaissance and later portraiture uses light coming from
the subject's right (viewer's left). It has its origins in the
left-to-right writing sytem used in the West since Greek times.
J C
Scarpitti) wrote:
Knowing something about the human brain and cognition, I'd have to say
that the first paragraph above is probably wrong. I doubt that all the
millions of years of evolution would lead to any such "programming" of
the brain to prefer light from one direction over another --
particularly since most of that evolution happened in the absence of
art and writing.
And concerning the second paragraph... a few 1000 years of convention
(left to right writing) would not be enough to "program" the brain
against all that evolution, so I'd say that your statement is more of
a convention than it is a description of the way the brain actually
works.
And as we all know, conventions are often begging to be broken
(impressionism and cubism being just some of the examples that broke
from the conventions in art).
By the way, took a look at your pics. Aside from the one of the tennis
guy, I didn't see much recent stuff. Most was shot 30 years ago when
you were a student. Do you have anything more recent?
-- JC
Randall Ainsworth
> that the first paragraph above is probably wrong. I doubt that all the
> millions of years of evolution would lead to any such "programming" of
> the brain to prefer light from one direction over another --
> particularly since most of that evolution happened in the absence of
> art and writing.
It is considered poor lighting to have more than one dominant light
source. You can mess with hairlights and kickers and all of that, but
there should be one dominant light source...what we call the main
light.
Michael Scarpitti
> On 22 Sep 2003 19:15:27 -0700, mikesc...@yahoo.com (Michael
> Scarpitti) wrote:
>
>
> >Not absolute rules, but the human brain is programmed to see a single
> >shadow from a single light sourse: the sun. It's inherently
> >unflattering to see mutiple light sources that cast multiple shadows
> >of near-equal strength on faces, and that's what I don't like here.
> >
> >Almost all Renaissance and later portraiture uses light coming from
> >the subject's right (viewer's left). It has its origins in the
> >left-to-right writing sytem used in the West since Greek times.
>
> Knowing something about the human brain and cognition, I'd have to say
> that the first paragraph above is probably wrong. I doubt that all the
> millions of years of evolution would lead to any such "programming" of
> the brain to prefer light from one direction over another --
> particularly since most of that evolution happened in the absence of
> art and writing.
1. Multiple light sources cause multiple shadows.
2. Unless they're greatly different in intensity, this tends to be
unflattering.
3. Light from the viewer's left is conventional and is to be prefered.
I looked at paintings the Columbus Museum of Art a few years ago
precisly on this matter, and confirmed the overwhelming majority of
classical painters (1450-1900±) use light from the left, especially
when people are in the paintings.
> And concerning the second paragraph... a few 1000 years of convention
> (left to right writing) would not be enough to "program" the brain
> against all that evolution, so I'd say that your statement is more of
> a convention than it is a description of the way the brain actually
> works.
>
> And as we all know, conventions are often begging to be broken
> (impressionism and cubism being just some of the examples that broke
> from the conventions in art).
>
> By the way, took a look at your pics. Aside from the one of the tennis
> guy, I didn't see much recent stuff. Most was shot 30 years ago when
> you were a student. Do you have anything more recent?
>
>
> -- JC
1. I was never a 'photo student', by the way. I'm self-taught.
2. I'll be doing some more soon. It seems as though all I want to do
is play tennis.
Randall Ainsworth
> 2. Unless they're greatly different in intensity, this tends to be
> unflattering.
> 3. Light from the viewer's left is conventional and is to be prefered.
> I looked at paintings the Columbus Museum of Art a few years ago
> precisly on this matter, and confirmed the overwhelming majority of
> classical painters (1450-1900±) use light from the left, especially
> when people are in the paintings.
Left...right...doesn't really matter although I tended to light from
the left in the studio. What's more important is an understanding of
how to use the light to create that 3-D effect on a flat piece of
paper.
J C
<r...@nospam.techline.com> wrote:
> Left...right...doesn't really matter although I tended to light from
>the left in the studio. What's more important is an understanding of
>how to use the light to create that 3-D effect on a flat piece of
>paper.
Agreed. I was ranting against the guy that claimed the brain worked a
certain way. People should not make scientific claims that simply are
not supported by evidence. .... because those arguments sound, well,
just silly.
-- JC
Michael Scarpitti
> On 22 Sep 2003 19:15:27 -0700, mikesc...@yahoo.com (Michael
> Scarpitti) wrote:
>
>
> >Not absolute rules, but the human brain is programmed to see a single
> >shadow from a single light sourse: the sun. It's inherently
> >unflattering to see mutiple light sources that cast multiple shadows
> >of near-equal strength on faces, and that's what I don't like here.
> >
> >Almost all Renaissance and later portraiture uses light coming from
> >the subject's right (viewer's left). It has its origins in the
> >left-to-right writing sytem used in the West since Greek times.
>
> Knowing something about the human brain and cognition, I'd have to say
> that the first paragraph above is probably wrong. I doubt that all the
> millions of years of evolution would lead to any such "programming" of
> the brain to prefer light from one direction over another --
> particularly since most of that evolution happened in the absence of
> art and writing.
But if we evolved on a planet with two or three suns, it would seem
more natural to us, no?
Michael Scarpitti
Then why do I feel ___really____ uncomfortable looking at portaits
when the light comes from **my** right?
Take the time to look at portaits and other painings of the classical
period. In the overwhelming majority of instances, the light comes
from the viewer's left. Whenever I see portraits lit from the viewer's
right, I cringe.
J C
Scarpitti) wrote:
>
>But if we evolved on a planet with two or three suns, it would seem
>more natural to us, no?
Good question Mike. But in the realm of science you need to test a
hypothesis, collect the data, and report your results. AND your
results need to be testable and repeatable by other observers.
So in this case you'd need to compare two exactly similar organisms
that have envolved on different planets -- one planet with one sun and
the other with multiple suns. And further, in the case of the planet
with multiple suns you'd have to prove that light from those suns, the
cycle of the day, and everything else directly related to your
hypothesis of multiple light sources and you'd have to weight the
effect or totally remove from your experiement any confounding factors
-- for example, planets with two suns, but upon which those two suns
are only visible in the sky for partial day.
Good luck.
Your hypothesis in this case is untestable. Therefore the statement is
in the realm of fancy, not fact.
What some people don't realize is that you can "suppose" and
"conjecture" all you want, but that does not make the statements FACT.
To state facts, you need a supporting body of evidence to back them
up.
-- JC
J C
Scarpitti) wrote:
>
>Then why do I feel ___really____ uncomfortable looking at portaits
>when the light comes from **my** right?
>
Not sure. Have you consulted a trained psychotherapist?
-- JC
James Meckley
>
> Almost all Renaissance and later portraiture uses light coming from
> the subject's right (viewer's left).
This is simply not true. A broad survey of western painting shows only
a slight bias toward portraits lit from the left (about a 55/45 split),
with some painters favoring left, some right and some exhibiting no preference.
Even more interesting is photographic portraiture, which shows a
virtually even 50/50 distribution of left-right preference in a survey
of fine art and commercial portraiture over the last 100 years. The
only exceptions are certain amateurs and camera-club members who are
unduly influenced by dogmatic rules telling them that the light must
come from the left.
James Meckley
Thad Smith
> > Left...right...doesn't really matter although I tended to light from
> > the left in the studio. What's more important is an understanding of
> > how to use the light to create that 3-D effect on a flat piece of
> > paper.
>
> Then why do I feel ___really____ uncomfortable looking at portaits
> when the light comes from **my** right?
I suspect that it is a response to seeing the classic paintings your
describe. I wonder, though, why the first two photos on your website
have pronounced lighting from the right.
It is a nice B&W collection.
Thad
Michael Scarpitti
In my review of painings in the museum, I found an overwhelming
preference for left-side lighting.
J C
Scarpitti) wrote:
>In my review of painings in the museum, I found an overwhelming
>preference for left-side lighting.
Huh, In my recent visit to the National Gallery I found an
overwhelming preference for the use of flesh toned paint in portraits.
I guess Picasso had it all wrong.
Doh!
-- JC
James Meckley
>
> In my review of painings in the museum, I found an overwhelming
> preference for left-side lighting.
Just one museum??? Increase your sample size to a statistically
significant level and you'll have a clearer understanding of what's
going on.
James Meckley
Michael Scarpitti
I did that too, on the interent, at the same time. This was a couple
of years ago. I had been in a discussion with a portrait photographer
I know, and I had asked him why he was using light from the right
side. He was unaware of the left-side 'rule' (I hate to cal it that).
Look here:
http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/s/sanchez/coello/index.html
http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/r/raphael/2firenze/1/index.html
http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/r/raphael/2firenze/2/index.html
The main page is here:
http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/tours/spain/p_16.html#portrait
The overwhelming majority show light from the viewer's left.
zeitgeist
> >
> > Almost all Renaissance and later portraiture uses light coming from
> > the subject's right (viewer's left).
>
>
> This is simply not true. A broad survey of western painting shows only
> a slight bias toward portraits lit from the left (about a 55/45 split),
> with some painters favoring left, some right and some exhibiting no
preference.
>
In the early days before people read as much as we do these days, heck,
before it was common for people to read, it didn't matter which side you
placed the light. Today, since most all readers have a natural tendency to
enter an image from the left side (this has been shown in studies were they
use a laser to map where the eye is directed as it moves across a page.
painters and early photographers used northlight studios and I would imagine
the side it was placed depended on the shape of the room.
> Even more interesting is photographic portraiture, which shows a
> virtually even 50/50 distribution of left-right preference in a survey
> of fine art and commercial portraiture over the last 100 years. The
> only exceptions are certain amateurs and camera-club members who are
> unduly influenced by dogmatic rules telling them that the light must
> come from the left.
>
use of right light in a commercial image is often a deliberate rule break to
cause the eye to stop, commercial imagery often uses deliberately bad
composition to cause the viewer to stop and mentally try and balance the
composition, usually implanting the item in your brain.
the use of a strong or contrasty right light can slow the eye down like a
speed bump.
at least for me
Martin Francis
news:2fd2ff8c.03092...@posting.google.com...
I hope you all don't mind, only i'm doing a dissertation this year on
"Portrait Psychology" and some of this is interesting... it's also
interesting to see the vehemence of some to stick to these alleged rules,
and the vehemence of others that there are no rules. So i've saved some
posts to a folder.
Conclusions remain to be drawn.
--
Martin
Staring at C:\ prompts since 1993
Michael Scarpitti
Did you look at the portraits by these painters?
James Meckley
My point in making the above comments was that this "rule" has been
broken so many times (fully half the time in photographic portraiture
and 40% of the time in painting) that it can no longer be considered a
rule, if it ever was. Of course, I admit to being skeptical of
aesthetic rules, anyway.
The most-often-proposed explanation for this "rule", the fact that we
read from left to right and therefore our eyes enter an image from the
left, has never been very convincing to me. I don't disagree with the
perceptual principle involved; I just have no difficulty entering a
darkened image that gradually becomes lighter and more revealing as I
scan it. Rather like a fade-in in film.
James Meckley
James Meckley
> I hope you all don't mind, only i'm doing a dissertation this year on
> "Portrait Psychology" and some of this is interesting... it's also
> interesting to see the vehemence of some to stick to these alleged rules,
> and the vehemence of others that there are no rules. So i've saved some
> posts to a folder.
Martin,
Good luck with your dissertation; I'll be most interested to read it
when you're finished. Please advise.
James Meckley
Michael Scarpitti
How do you account for my extreme discomfort looking at images where
the light comes from my right side?
Marc 182
mikesc...@yahoo.com says...
Why do you assume your "extreme discomfort" is indicative of anyone
else?
rob elsjan
>
>
> How do you account for my extreme discomfort looking at images where
> the light comes from my right side?
Have you considered the fact that classrooms, in wich most of us have
spent a considerable amount of time, have the windows on the left ?
(Supposedly because the majority uses their right hand to hold their pen
en so as not be in one's own shadow when writing.) After ten to 15 years
light from the left would seem natural...
grtz rob
<Enter Your Full Name>
I had never noticed that! Now I think about it, you are spot on.
Funny how this sort of thing can slip by unnoticed through 14 years at
school!
"rob elsjan" <ne...@fotorob.nl> wrote in message
news:blh3re$c6g6c$1...@ID-83075.news.uni-berlin.de...
Michael Scarpitti
I seem to recall talking to a portrait photographer, many years ago,
and I remember him turning puple at the sight of light from the right.
When? I cannot remember. Maybe it was one of the Makio yearbook
portrait photographers. The yearbook would have a photographer
available for senior portraits for about 3 weeks in the fall and
winter quarters. We would reserve a suite in the Ohio Union, and
advertise in the school rag, and announce at football games. Needless
to say, even so some students never got the word. One mother wrote to
me when I became editor and asked why her son's picture wasn't in the
Makio. I told her that this wasn't high school, and that students were
'on their own', that no-one is going door-to-door looking for seniors,
and ushering them in to getting their picture taken for the yearbook.
We didn't have the time.
James Meckley
> How do you account for my extreme discomfort looking at images where
> the light comes from my right side?
A brain tumor, perhaps?
James Meckley
Michael Scarpitti
Damn! That's it!
Lewis Lang
>Almost all Renaissance and later portraiture uses light coming from
>the subject's right (viewer's left). It has its origins in the
>left-to-right writing sytem used in the West since Greek times.
Hi Mike:
Since I last checked my watch, this is no longer the Renaissance (not since
3:30 PM, atleast ;-)) and no photographer in any age is limited by the habits,
styles, or mannerisms of painters of past ages. Use the lighting direction that
works best with the subject. (Blind following) Rules are for fools. As
photographers we should observe, intuit, reason, feel and make our own best
judgement calls as to lighting direction and how/whether its appropriate for
each and every different subject. This reminds me of some studio photographers
who virtualy, if not literally have their fill lights (and key lights?) nailed
into the floor/ceiling/etc. When you have two eyes and a mind you no longer
need rules - vision "rules".
Regards,
Lewis
Check out my photos at "LEWISVISION":
http://members.aol.com/Lewisvisn/home.htm
Remove "nospam" to reply
Lewis Lang
>3. Light from the viewer's left is conventional and is to be prefered.
>I looked at paintings the Columbus Museum of Art a few years ago
>precisly on this matter, and confirmed the overwhelming majority of
>classical painters (1450-1900ą) use light from the left, especially
>when people are in the paintings.
Why emulate dead painters and the conventional - we are live photographers,
aren't we? There's no need to fossilize a lighting approach, conventional or
otherwise. "One size doesn't have to fit all" ;-)
Lewis Lang
>right, I cringe.
Conditioning. Neither left nor right is "right" - what is right (for lighting
direction) is what works best for the subject being photographed at hand.
Lewis Lang
>From: mikesc...@yahoo.com (Michael Scarpitti)
>Date: Tue, Sep 23, 2003 8:52 PM
>Message-id: <2fd2ff8c.03092...@posting.google.com>
Which brings up a tangential but related subject, catchlights in the eyes.
Common wisdom says only one catchlight for each eye since we have only one sun.
But we also have windows and water and mirrors and chrome from cars/etc. that
reflect that sun so it seems more logical to me to have as many catchlights as
one wants _provided_ it works with the overall subject and mood of the
photograph. This is especially true for studio fashion photography where it is
obvious that the subject was photographed in a studio (seemless paper in the
background may give it away as a studio ;-)) in which, to me anyway, it would
seem more "natural" to allow each eaye to have as many catchlights as there are
lights being used w/i range/angle of incidence on the subject in the studio -
only changing though amount/type of lights used or later in Photoshop how many
catchlights (reflections of the light source) appear in each eye. This is not
to say that if there was a cafe set in a studio in which the subject sits next
to a mock window (let's say to set a romantic mood or sense of place, ie. a
cafe) that using a rectangular vertical soft box to get a fake'/faux window
light reflection in that person's eyes wouldn't be a good move.
Speaking of moving, whether catchlights or lighting direction, convention(s)
should only be used when it fits the subject/mood of the photograph and
virtually never for their own sake lest you want to emulate a past/conventional
style of lighting for some odd (or even ;-)) reason.
Lewis Lang
>Date: Wed, Sep 24, 2003 3:46 PM
>Message-id: <xblxP1v1K7rf0d...@4ax.com>
>
>On 23 Sep 2003 13:52:39 -0700, mikesc...@yahoo.com (Michael
>Scarpitti) wrote:
>
>
>>
>>But if we evolved on a planet with two or three suns, it would seem
>>more natural to us, no?
>
>Good question Mike. But in the realm of science you need to test a
>hypothesis, collect the data, and report your results. AND your
>results need to be testable and repeatable by other observers.
>
>So in this case you'd need to compare two exactly similar organisms
>that have envolved on different planets -- one planet with one sun and
>the other with multiple suns.
SNIP
First you'd have to invent warp drive, though, and "live long and prosper"
enough in order to have the funds to get there. Then there's the matter of
finding life on other planets, which, if there are doing a quite well job of
avoiding our detection. If they were smart, they'd move to another unkown
planet/star system before all the Earth photographers arrived to test out their
hypotheses. First comes the scientists, then comes marketing, then comes
demographics, bill boards, strip malls and before you know it Alpha Centauri IV
is starting to look a lot like El Paso, Texas but w/ less Chevy dealers.
Lewis Lang
>Date: Wed, Sep 24, 2003 9:49 PM
>Message-id: <2fd2ff8c.03092...@posting.google.com>
Perhaps your sample is not representative of the whole of all fine art
paintings from the Renaissance till now? They call New Jersey the Garden State,
but just viewing it in the Northeast section one might think they wrongly named
it and should have called it "The Asphalt Bungle" ;-)
Lewis Lang
>I seem to recall talking to a portrait photographer, many years ago,
>and I remember him turning puple at the sight of light from the right.
Early beta trials of Viagra? ;-)