Determining the direction of light

JDBB · Jun 25, 2008

Hey all,
I've been having some trouble with this rather simple question. How do you determine the direction of where the light is coming from, say in a bright room or outdoors on a bright day?
Correct me if am wrong but the reason am asking is because I've heard that for portrait photography in the case of a man, it is better to have side lighting; and in the case of a woman, it's better to have front lighting. Is this even true?
Any help is surely appreciated

Cheers,
JDBB

bigalbest · Jun 25, 2008

There is no right answer here. Start looking at your favorite photographs and try to reverse engineer how they were done. At first this is a little difficult but after a while you will start to see obvious clues like shadow direction that will tell you where the light is coming from. The book "Light: Science and Magic" has some really detailed descriptions on how to direct this light yourself. I hope this helps answer your question.

Big Mike · Jun 25, 2008

Welcome to the forum.

There are some soft rules for lighting men or women etc...but it's not as cut & dry as that. Side lighting accentuates texture and form and front lighting tends to flatten.

As for how to tell the direction of light...I would think that an easy way would be to look for the shadows. If the shadow is falling to the left, then the light is coming from the right...and so on.