Otherwise, just few classic tricks like placing blocking black walls if I wanted to taper the light and emphasise the direction.
This in itself is a discovery to me. So simple yet so effective.
Indeed :- ) The simplest measures are often the best. But it requires great deal of experience, imagination and... try&tweaks to apply.
There is lot of resources in photography world how to modulate light. It's harder to find how they do it in architectural work, because that's very small niche. Some exception to this is american real-estate photography but I am not big fan of that style ("just point flashlight everywhere so there is no shadows at all").
But the people who shoot catalogues for Poliform,etc.. those keep their secrets rather well.
But the techniques are quite universal and what applies to portraits, does sort of apply to furniture too :- ). So we can extrapolate from that.
I actually regret a lot not spending my early time in 3D building this sort of foundation, how to use spotlights, softboxes, bounce cards etc. So for me, it's slow rediscovery too.
But the block/bounce cards/walls is very effective thing. It's subtle..but has a lot of depth, it can't be simulated in post-production because it just affects everything, including reflection.
In this series, I used it in mainly in the kitchens, behind a camera. I needed a broad light to illuminate the middle of the room, where the island lies, but this washed away the flooring and we never want the front part of image to be the brightest when our focus point was in the middle.
So I would find the best angle, one that gives me nicest broad illumination, but also interesting shadows on volumes and lastly, revealing texture. And then I would slightly tweak and modulate the light with external factors like the block/bounce cards.Or a tree outside :- ) Anything works. It's very iterative work.
Hi Juraj,
a Tutorial would be nice....
Thx Thomas
I think the floor might be fun to show :- ).
