Assignment #4: Light Qualities

One important notion to take away from this lesson is that the nature of the surface or material that light is interacting with can indicate whether we will see diffused or specular light. 

Here's an example from one of my images:

Notice in the left image, there's no syrup on the food. But when the syrup is added on the right image, it gives somewhat of a different look to it, right?

Simply put, it went from a"diffused" quality of light to a "specular" quality of light because of the nature of the syrup allowed for the light to reflect into the camera much more. On the other hand, the surface of the chicken and waffles scattered the light more and therefore cause a "diffused" type of reflection from them. 

Defining these two categories and terms not only helps us be more deliberate with our lighting, but it may also help us communicate with our clients when you're explaining why the lighting in a particular photo is behaving in a certain way. 

Or the client may ask for a specific look, but might not know how to accurately communicate it to you. 

So to help you practice executing a particular request, your assignment is as follows: 

Using natural light, shoot a rice dish (it can be plain or any rice dish you'd like) with either soft or hard light, but make sure the light has a SPECULAR quality to it. 

Please don't forget to take a BTS photo as well. Post your results in our Discord channel. 

Great job! When you're ready, I'll see you in the next lesson.