Assignment 3 - Laws of Light Portraits Using One Bulb

Serene Maggie

Serene Maggie: For this photo, I wanted to convey the emotion of serenity that I feel about Maggie. Using a single 250 watt light bulb, I positioned the light source behind a diffusion screen at the upper left hand side of the subject. We positioned a gold reflector at the lower right hand side of the subject. Using the Angle of Incident Equals the Angle of Reflection law of light, we reflected the diffused light from the 250 watt bulb onto the right hand side of Maggie's face, to create a warm, serene light. The Inverse Square Law is also shown in the falloff of light from right to left on Maggie's  shoulders. 

Tense Maggie

Tense Maggie: For this photo, the aim was to create the opposite emotion of serenity, or stress. By using the the Angle of Incident Equals the Angle of Reflection law of light, the main light source was positioned low to the ground, to the bottom left hand side of the subject. A small hand mirror was used to reflect a small patch of light onto Maggie's right eye. The resulting effect is an almost jack-o-lantern portrait in which the main features of the subject's face are broken up into various shaped shadows, resulting in a stressed out, unsettling effect. The Inverse Square Law is also shown in the falloff of light from right to left on Maggie's  shoulders.