Dan and I come from similarl work backgrounds in the CYMK centric offset printing, starting in the 70s when color corrections where done by masking off a halftone with lacquer and chemically etching the dots to change their size. So I relate to his concepts very easily.
As for his approach? Everyone who teaches formally in a class or book does it from the lesson plan baseline of what they discovered by trial and error and cumulative experience and tries to present the information in a logical sequence of technical facts leading towards the understanding of a larger goal.
Books by their very nature are \"old school\". The Internet, Google and forums like this has changed the way people learn things like photography and the related skill sets of post processing and printing. Now people \"cherry pick\" nuggets of information on an ad hoc basis, which is more efficient in meeting the immediate need for information to solve an immediate problem but doesn\'t provide the context to understand why things work and solve a slightly different one next time.
The underlying goal of formal education isn\'t cramming minds full of facts, but rather teaching the students how to solve problems by connecting facts in a logical progression to arrive at the best strategy to solve problems and accomplish the goals. That\'s the part that is missing in education via Google and narrowly focused forum \"How do I .... \" questions.
The measure of the value of and information gained intellectually comes from validating it by personal experience and people of different temperaments do that differently. Tuition and \"book learning\" just eliminates much of the trial and error by giving the student a starting baseline of what is known to work best most of the time in a situation. That doesn\'t mean it will always work best or is the best solution for a different problem, but provides a blueprint baseline for comparing everything else.
I taught in a classroom on the college level for five years back in the late 70\'s using a lesson plan that led students up structured learning curve in a photo reproduction 101 which allowed them to understand the more advanced concepts in photo reproduction 201 the next semester. The main difference in learning styles I\'ve observed between intuitive and sensing types is that an intuitive will come across new information and if it fits logically with what they already know will accept it on face value as valid without actually trying it and seeing the cause and effect themselves.
I discovered back in the mid-90s when starting to give photo advice on the net that if I using that traditional \"Do this it works.\" approach I\'d get a lot of \"there are no rules\" blowback Trolls from people high on the learning curve who learned by trial and error rather than by formal tuition. That\'s rule rather than the exception in photograph nowadays.
Over the course of several years and hundreds of C&Cs and edits I realized that in the Internet age people learn best from their personal baselines. On the net people asking specific questions with some level of understanding of the topic. Unfortunately their understanding based on incorrect assumptions about the underlying technical cause and effect. They are the most difficult to teach because first they demand you prove their assumptions are wrong before they will even open their minds to the possibility of alternate, more technically sound approaches.
The use of fill is a good example. It seems logical to put fill on the side opposite the key light because that\'s where the shadows are seen, but on a cause and effect level its not a good strategy because the fill will create shadows and dark voids in the lighting pattern which on a face are very distracting, \"hard\" looking and unflattering. It also puts the side of the nose furthest from the fill which makes its shadow the darkest and most distracting one on the face.
Placing fill over the camera seems at first glance to be a very bad idea because most people start from a baseline of flash on or over the camera and see that it sucks. But once the person tries it and grasps the cause and effect of fill shadows = hard harsh lighting the logic of placing fill over the camera makes sense compared to everything else they try.
When I C&C a portait one of the first things I notice is the tone of the nose shadow vs. all the other shadows on the face. Shadows provide the clues to 3D shape and a dark nose shadow draws attention to the nose and if not skillfully places via the key light angle exaggerates its shape. So just from that one clue I can tell a lot about key and fill placement and see ways to make it more effective compared to my experience using centered even fill.
But curiously some, including many pros, have such a strong belief based on personal experience that any light near the camera is \"bad\" lighting they will never even try the idea and see if it works. Others trying the idea will see no problem with having shaded fill and dark distracting nose shadows on the portraits they take and will continue putting fill on the side and shading it. In the end what matters is something works for you. The best a teacher or author can do is convey what has worked for them in the hope someone will actually try it and find it easier and more effective at solving the problem.
Comparison is the key to both validation of new ideas and understanding how they work.
I like it when people post several portraits of the same subject with different facial angles and lighting patterns. It makes it easy for me to point out how photo #1 has a more flattering angle than #2 or that how the lighting in #3 is better because its not spilling past the eye notch and hitting ear as in #4 taking in the same light but with the face turned into slightly differently. People will grasp the difference and validate the advice as being valuable much more readily by seeing the differences by comparison on a conscious intellectual level than if you simply told them to keep the key light 45° from the nose. Once they know the implications of having a nose shadow being the darkest shadow on the face intellectually and accept its not a good thing for flattering a face, it becomes part of their photographic baseline of what looks \"normal\".
That\'s one of the reasons I hang out here vs. spending the time writing book, and why I put an e-mail link on the bottom of every tutorial.
Dan and I come from similarly work backgrounds in the CYMK centric offset printing, starting in the 70s when color corrections where done by masking off a halftone with lacquer and chemically etching the dots to change their size. So I relate to his concepts very easily.
As for his approach? Everyone who teaches formally in a class or book does it from the lesson plan baseline of what they discovered by trial and error and cumulative experience and tries to present the information in a logical sequence of technical facts leading towards the understanding of a larger goal.
Books by their very nature are \"old school\". The Internet, Google and forums like this has changed the way people learn things like photography and the related skill sets of post processing and printing. Now people \"cherry pick\" nuggets of information on an ad hoc basis, which is more efficient in meeting the immediate need for information to solve an immediate problem but doesn\'t provide the context to understand why things work and solve a slightly different one next time.
The underlying goal of formal education isn\'t cramming minds full of facts, but rather teaching the students how to solve problems by connecting facts in a logical progression to arrive at the best strategy to solve problems and accomplish the goals. That\'s the part that is missing in education via Google and narrowly focused forum \"How do I .... \" questions.
The measure of the value of and information gained intellectually comes from validating it by personal experience and people of different temperaments do that differently. Tuition and \"book learning\" just eliminates much of the trial and error by giving the student a starting baseline of what is known to work best most of the time in a situation. That doesn\'t mean it will always work best or is the best solution for a different problem, but provides a blueprint baseline for comparing everything else.
I taught in a classroom on the college level for five years back in the late 70\'s using a lesson plan that led students up structured learning curve in a photo reproduction 101 which allowed them to understand the more advanced concepts in photo reproduction 201 the next semester. The main difference in learning styles I\'ve observed between intuitive and sensing types is that an intuitive will come across new information and if it fits logically with what they already know will accept it on face value as valid without actually trying it and seeing the cause and effect themselves.
I discovered back in the mid-90s when starting to give photo advice on the net that if I using that traditional \"Do this it works.\" approach I\'d get a lot of \"there are no rules\" blowback Trolls from people high on the learning curve who learned by trial and error rather than by formal tuition. That\'s rule rather than the exception in photograph nowadays.
Over the course of several years and hundreds of C&Cs and edits I realized that in the Internet age people learn best from their personal baselines. On the net people asking specific questions with some level of understanding of the topic. Unfortunately their understanding based on incorrect assumptions about the underlying technical cause and effect. They are the most difficult to teach because first they demand you prove their assumptions are wrong before they will even open their minds to the possibility of alternate, more technically sound approaches.
The use of fill is a good example. It seems logical to put fill on the side opposite the key light because that\'s where the shadows are seen, but on a cause and effect level its not a good strategy because the fill will create shadows and dark voids in the lighting pattern which on a face are very distracting, \"hard\" looking and unflattering. It also puts the side of the nose furthest from the fill which makes its shadow the darkest and most distracting one on the face.
Placing fill over the camera seems at first glance to be a very bad idea because most people start from a baseline of flash on or over the camera and see that it sucks. But once the person tries it and grasps the cause and effect of fill shadows = hard harsh lighting the logic of placing fill over the camera makes sense compared to everything else they try.
When I C&C a portait one of the first things I notice is the tone of the nose shadow vs. all the other shadows on the face. Shadows provide the clues to 3D shape and a dark nose shadow draws attention to the nose and if not skillfully places via the key light angle exaggerates its shape. So just from that one clue I can tell a lot about key and fill placement and see ways to make it more effective compared to my experience using centered even fill.
But curiously some, including many pros, have such a strong belief based on personal experience that any light near the camera is \"bad\" lighting they will never even try the idea and see if it works. Others trying the idea will see no problem with having shaded fill and dark distracting nose shadows on the portraits they take and will continue putting fill on the side and shading it. In the end what matters is something works for you. The best a teacher or author can do is convey what has worked for them in the hope someone will actually try it and find it easier and more effective at solving the problem.
Comparison is the key to both validation of new ideas and understanding how they work.
I like it when people post several portraits of the same subject with different facial angles and lighting patterns. It makes it easy for me to point out how photo #1 has a more flattering angle than #2 or that how the lighting in #3 is better because its not spilling past the eye notch and hitting ear as in #4 taking in the same light but with the face turned into slightly differently. People will grasp the difference and validate the advice as being valuable much more readily by seeing the differences by comparison on a conscious intellectual level than if you simply told them to keep the key light 45° from the nose. Once they know the implications of having a nose shadow being the darkest shadow on the face intellectually and accept its not a good thing for flattering a face, it becomes part of their photographic baseline of what looks \"normal\".
That\'s one of the reasons I hang out here vs. spending the time writing book, and why I put an e-mail link on the bottom of every tutorial.
Aug 24, 2011 at 12:00 PM
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