Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I. Copyright © 2003 – 2009 Kenji Tachibana Drawing with Light Indoor as Outdoor Light.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light S tory Telling with Style: Next to telling a good story, drawing with light and moving composition are at the core of skilful photography. And story telling with style can’t be separated from gorgeous and dynamite lighting.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light A ctive Involvement: Do more than just finding a beautiful location and light. Actively work with the location and lighting to nudge it into drawing your subject and scene. Medium to hard ‘soft’ lighting is what you want. Make a good start at it by using Skylight. That is the sky only portion of Daylight which is made up of Skylight and direct Sunlight. Use a white reflector, mirror, or a light block to ‘light-paint’ (light-modify) the scene.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light B arebones Storytelling: At minimum, you need to know when an image is: 1.Correctly exposed – not too light or too dark. 2.Correct color balance – not warm or cool. 3.Correct focus – not blurry due to incorrect focus point or camera motion blur. All current digitals have active or passive histogram, exposure-graph. Use it to help analyze your exposure. The more you use it, the more useful it will become to you.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light Y ou Deserve It: You should also be using the histogram on your personal shoots. And even in your personal shoots, the story influences everything from technique, composition, location choice, to lighting.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light R emember: What you already know If I were to ask you outside the class “Does this image brightness look believable?”. Most of you will easily be able to say that it’s too light, too dark, or just right. And, if it’s not in focus, you’ll also be able to tell that too. But something strange happens when people become students. They forget what they already know. And they also loose their common sense. Please do your best not to loose the ability to see and judge for yourself. It’s especially important that you don’t loose your common sense…

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light: Expectations I ndoor or Outdoor: Is the example shot an indoor or an outdoor shot? Why do you think so? What are the evidence for your opinion?

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light: Camera original I ndoor Shot: This was shot inside Wallingford QFC under fluorescent lights.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light: Creating illusions V ariation: The top image was my first exposure. I Playback reviewed the image with the ‘Indoor or outdoor light’ question as my story. The bottom shot is the reshoot based on the story. I reduced the clues by cropping closer to the subject grouping.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light: Know your audience V iewer’s Point-of-View: Creating an illusion requires viewer participation. The viewer brings both their conscious and unconscious expectations to your photographic story offering. That the fun of story telling. So, the more you practice, the better you will become. In the meantime, make yourself more informed about lot of academic subjects, people, cultures, and religion. Start that self education by paying attention to your team and class mates. By the end of the class, you will know how some of the students will respond to your story…

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light: E xpectation: Trained or untrained viewers will have expectation about both lighting and subject matter. Top light on a garden- like scene with plant and flowers will suggests outdoor to most viewers without florist experience.

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light: V iewer Differences: I knew that my viewers (local students) would most likely be use to the idea of overcast lighting. To a native Texan, they would expect to see direct sunlight in an outdoor shot…

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light: Summary 1 L earn at the Concept (Idea) Level: Even if you weren’t fooled about the type of light, it’s important to build your story on concrete ideas: 1.Thinking about lighting and lighting expectation. 2.Thinking about subject and viewer expectation. 3.Test out the image with random audiences…

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Draw with Light: Summary 2 S hoot at the Concept Level: This class is about story telling. Whether you like the idea or not, photography is about story telling. So, always shoot with a story in mind. If you see a shot that moves you, figure out what the story: 1.Before taking the image… 2.While interacting and capturing the image… 3.After the shoot while doing the lab work… Although, don’t force your story if it’s not jelling. You might need to modify or even change your story to fit the real world ‘here and now’. Learn to dance with the moment…

Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I x End