Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Rembrandt Lighting Technique

So I figured out a new technique to use in photographing fruits and vegetables last week. I call it the Rembrandt Lighting Technique, because it gives a nice "Old Masters" kind of brooding look to the pictures.
It's pretty simple actually. I set up a black cloth on my dining room table, which is next to the deck door, which provides good sidelight. Then I set up my fruit(s) or vegetable(s) and putting my camera on the tripod, set it on f/22 to really slow the shutter down, and I used cloudy natural sidelight with no other lights to take these photos at somewhat long exposures of 2-5 seconds.
The long exposures and cloudy, diffuse natural light seem to allow for rich, saturated colors in the pictures, despite the fact that when I set them up, you'd think they'd be the worst, underexposed, drab looking pictures ever.
In fact, I was just desperate to photograph something when I started this project last week. I didn't have time to leave the house and find a landscape and the light was wrong anyhow--it was cloudy! So when I set up, I thought, "Girl, you must be crazy. These are going to be ugly!" But after a little tweaking of the exposure times and aperture, this was what resulted. I'm quite happy with it. What do you think?





2 comments:

Don said...

Wow, great execution on these pictures. I love 45 degree lighting (haha, that's easier for me to spell) and you've done a great job. The idea of using natural, diffused light along with long exposures and cloudy white-balance is brilliant - thanks for sharing that idea.
Cheers, Don

Unknown said...

Thanks Don! I appreciate you taking the time to look at and read my blog and I'm glad you liked the pictures. I'm definitely going to revisit this technique this winter. It's certainly been a rewarding experience for me! Cindy

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