19 January, 2009

Dinosaurs Vs...Day 19

Dinosaurs Vs...He-Man, Master of the Universe


I know what you’re thinking; “dude, such a cop-out.” Yeah well, only sort of. I look at the toys and determine what works for each one and manages to evoke a certain story. Additionally, this lets me address something that I’ve noticed when looking at the work of professional photographers and very good amateurs/enthusiasts. The one thing that I think the enthusiasts really need to work on is an understanding of the way light works. I’m not saying they are bad at it, I’ve seen many enthusiasts whose work is gorgeous. Who’s to say that they got lucky or truly understand light though? I’ve got four such “face offs” (Days 7, 13, 18, and now 19) yet I have four distinctly different lighting situations, each evoking a different feeling to the image.

Now I’m not going to say I’m the master of the universe when it comes to lighting, but I will say that the major thing that the professional understands about light, is how to manipulate it to suit their needs. Perhaps the best example I can give is architectural and landscape photography. A very good understanding of what light is doing is necessary to create really evocative images and not just pretty pictures. Check out Ted and Stephen for some gorgeous applications of light. I particularly enjoy Ted's Editorial work and Stephen's Ellis Island project. So that's that. Now to get some lightning into my brain storm.

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