15 Jun
2010
In the different off-camera communities I know, a real effort is put in accompanying each photo with information about its lighting. On the Strobist Flickr Group for instance, it is mandatory to describe the setup that was used in the photo caption. This is truly a nice commitment in order to help others learning about lighting and I am the first to enjoy this, but I don't find text descriptions appropriate for that kind of documentation. While this is probably the best and most direct way to comply to this rule on Flickr, I am surely not the only one to prefer something a bit more visual, as I have seen setup shots and lighting diagrams flourish along with those text descriptions. Not that much though...
A lighting diagram is a great tool to document a photo and–more specifically–the lights and modifiers used to create it. I am surprised it is not more widely used by strobists and/or studio photographers... in fact, I've found through my readings of forums and blogs, that not everybody seems to understand the benefits of lighting diagrams and how to use them properly.
This post will give you my understanding of this tool and some tips on how to get and communicate useful information through a diagram. Of course, I don't mean to have absolute knowledge on the subject, but I do hope to bring some insights on lighting diagrams to those who are still wondering about their usefulness.
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Contributed by Olivier Lance