A Look @ Lighting

I chose this portrait of Joooo, taken in Nice to start off this blogs discussion on light. Joooo, my subject, is lit really well, just using ambient natural (albeit artificial, but I'm using it in the sense of all ready existing and not placed by the photographer) light coming from the street, the vendor shop behind him and perhaps the light of the night, moon.

A photo of mine, taken in Granada. The women in this image are on the move, everything about them from the their steps cause on to the brightness of their dress, to their setting suggest life and motion and vitality. The main lighting source is pictured, it creates a nice fill light, ambient.

This is a photo of mine, also taken in Granada. I chose this work to discuss lighting because I love its ambient light. The light from the cars, the street lights, the shop fronts, all add to this idea of LIFE, happening here and now, and there sits this man, by himself, a spectator to it all.

Taken at a Somali Refuge camp, in Kenya. A young girl and her father. This image recalls the idea of a portrait. The girl references a portrait sitter, in a say a studio, waiting to get her picture taken for a school yearbook or her yearly family photo shoot to chronicle the passage of time. But the reality of this image is much different. The presence of her father. The touch being shared between them. The state of her clothing, the background. All have a profound effect on the perceived reality for the viewer. Lighting is soft and subtle, enhancing the triadic human bond between the girl, her father and the viewer.

Hadija and her father Badel Addan Gadel, Somali refugee camp, Mandera, Kenya © Fazal Sheikh 2009




This is from a show in Shanghai. The photo is called "uprooted #12" from a series named "uprooted". That title adds many things to the narrative of this image. Love the humanity. The image appears to be a document to time and space yet upon closer inspection as surrealist quality pervades. The lighting is translucent, magical and seems optically misleading. The pattern and texture of the light lend to that surreal quality, unable to discern if it is real or imposed.

YANG YI: "Uprooted #12: Old Town of Kaixian, The Ring Road" (2007) C-Print. 100cm x 70cm, Edition of 12; 150cm x 105cm - Edition of 6.
© YANG Yi. Courtesy of m97 Gallery.



Love this. It's from a show in the Netherlands called: Human Conditions. The utter unmasked humanity in this moment blows me away. The side, artificial lighting, I think, helps set the tone for setting (i.e. indoor, institutional feel) and the focal point (the kiss and the boys arm are the most well lit, indicating a reference to who this boy is, meaning sick, and who that man is, meaning the doctor, and the moment that they are sharing together)

Abid Katib ©