Keeping It Artificial

TIPS FOR ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING IN PHOTOGRAPHY

- Nandana James

Keep it natural, they say. This is a platitude that has been doing its rounds in not just photography, but in almost every form of art. However, with technology growing by leaps and bounds, and with its foray into photography, such an advice to keep it natural would sound trite even. This time, we are going to tell you ways to use artificial light and how to break away from the conventional, age-old way of using natural light.

For the uninitiated, artificial lighting can be explained as lighting that is made available through external sources, like LED light, streetlights, lamps, studio strobe, speed light and the like. Natural lighting, as opposed to this, is the available light such as that produced by the sun or the moon. Artificial lighting can take time to get acclimatised to, apart from also necessitating additional funds to arrange for the equipment. This is the reason why artificial lighting is mostly preferred for commercial, product and fashion photography, where there is usually a lucrative budget and availability of ample resources. The freedom and control that comes with artificial lighting can be refreshing as you will no longer be tied down to constraints of a golden hour or instances of good, natural lighting. The whims of nature is another inconvenience that artificial lighting can free us from. Also, considering the innovation and creativity that artificial lighting bestows on you, the results can be just exquisite, to say the least.

Most commonly used artificial light sources:

Incandescent 

Incandescent light includes the light from bulbs and the large tungsten “hot lights” used in studio sets. The quality and harshness of light from incandescent sources can be controlled by flags, reflectors, and diffusion material. This can be an effective way to use artificial lighting as it can set a particular mood for your photography.