Light
Chapter one of the book goes over the basics and introduction of what light means in a photograph. He does this in a more symbolic way calling light “ the language of photography”. Also introduced are the principles of light, which are the size of the light source, The types of reflections, and the family of angles. The idea is also introduced that we have to develop a least a minimal understanding of photo editing programs, because as good as it is to plan out a scene and the lighting for that place, sometimes you will need to simply do a bit of editing to get the composition right.
The second chapter begins to go in depth more into the technical aspects of lighting. It give us the technical definition that light is a type of energy called electromagnetic radiation, and that it travels in photons which are bundles of raw or pure energy. Photons contain no mass but do contain energy. It then goes on to explain what light means to a photographer and how we would only really care about the brightness when we pick out a light source. The second quality of light that photographers care about is color. Which we can manipulate late in photo editing; not only when it comes to the color of the subject matter, but also when it comes to the actual color temperature of the light source. The final vey important quality that photographers will take notice in is the harshness of the light or the contrast. This will change the way that the shadows and highlight in an image interact with each other. A little bit of contrast is good, but too much contrast can make it hard to get a clean looking image, it will be over and underexposed at the same time in different areas of the same image.
In the third chapter the author goes more over reflections and how to use them in a composition. There is three types of reflections discussed, diffuse reflection, direct reflection, and glare. Diffuse reflections never change in brightness no matter what angle you shoot from. Direct reflections are literally a mirror of the light the source is producing; they are also referred to by specular reflections. These types of reflections are produced by mirrors,glass, metal sheets, water etc. The angle of the light will follow its course so different perspective will view different images. It then goes on to explain how a polarizer will change the way that light is perceived and how it affects the trajectory of the angle.
