Exercise 4.10 - Lighting angle

The task was to take 11 pictures of the same subject, lit through the diffuser from different angles.
This exercise I did using the same diffuser as for the previous one. All pictures were taken with the same settings of the camera: 90mm, f/3.2, 1/3sec, ISO 200. The interesting thing is that I used LED lamp and the best white balance setting for this kind of lighting was Direct Sunlight.

For the first part I took some pictures of the subject lit from the different sides (lamp on the same level with the subject).

Light in the front 

Light from the side

Light from the back side

Light from the back

For the second part I put the lamp in a position of 45 degrees in relation to the subject and took the same number of pictures from different sides.

Light in the front (45 degrees angle)

Light from the side (45 degrees)

Light from the back side (45 degrees)

Light from the back (45 degrees)

For the third part I had to take three pictures taken with lighting on the top of the subject.

Light overhead

Light slightly in front

Light slightly behind

There is a number of observations that I have made by doing this exercise:

1. Lighting from the back of the camera gives the smallest number of shadows. In some occasions the subject might be too flat.

2. Lighting from the side might give interesting shadows, depending on the object. It is always worth trying different angles of lighting. Out of all these pictures the one I like the most is the one taken from the back side under 45 degrees angle. It puts the subject in the shadow, just leaving eyes and some contour seen on the shot, and it also create a nice shadow and ray of light in the background. 

3. All three parts show, that shooting straight from the back is a bad idea, the edges are not highlighted, the subject is not seen, and the background is overexposed. It is the same like shooting against the bright sun.   

The overall conclusion is that depending on the subject and the impression you want to create by the particular shot, the lighting angle will be different.