Lighting Ideas

I am currently taking a basic photography class at my school right now and the current project is studio. The class is all film, black and white. I am shooting my images on wednesday. We can use a black or white backdrop and two lights. I have some ideas but was wondering if you guys could recamend anything I should try or stay away from.

Thanks

In black and white, you will want to be thinking about contrast. I don't know what you will be photographing, but you should think of ways to make your subject crast well in the image. EX: Clothing...are you wanting to ccontrast the background or blend in? I prefer high contrast B&Ws. So think of using very dark dark colors and very bright light colors. I wouldn't overdue it to make your image look blown out, but use that to your liking. I would look for images on the web in B&W and study their caracteristics. See how the harsh or soft light is used to create strong or soft shadows. Soft shadows are low contrast, hard shadows are high contrast. For people, soft light is usually prefered, but don't be afraid to mix things up and break the rules. Some of the greatest photographers such as Michael Grecco breaks most of the standard lighting rules, but does it in a way that brings new life to photography. I don't think I am being very helpful, but hopefully this is a good start for your thinking.

Yeah. Most of my class has been doing butterfly lighting with a 1:1 or 1:2 ratios. I just wanted to switch it up a little. I was thinking some lighting from above to get the shadows under eyes. The grade will be based on exposure and the lighting tecnique, not so much the model. Its more of a techniqual project then a creative one, but I don't wanna just copy everyone else.

What kind of lights will you be using?

Do not mix up the 'quality of light' with the 'contrast ratio'. Two different, and independently controllable things! 'Hard vs. soft' deals with the apparent light source size, and how diffuse (or well defined) the edges of the shadows are. Independent of that is the contrast ratio.... 7:1 is high contrast, 2:1 is low contrast.

Lastly, do not mix up the ratio of intensity of lights and the contrast ratio of the lighting upon the subject. For example, the lighting intensity could be 2:1, but the lighting of the subject could be 2:1 or 3:1 depending upon how the ligthts are made to fall on the subject.

I wanna say they are sunpak, but not positive. Yeah, was talking about contrast ratio, should have clarified. Lots of different terms, and I'm pretty new to this!