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This week we'll be
talking about probably one

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of the most important aspects
of photography, which is light.

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As in photo-graphy
[spoken  phonetically],

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writing or drawing with light.

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It's a very content-rich
conversation,

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we're going to have, and
could really, easily,

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take up a full six-week course.

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But for our purposes
here, we're going

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to give you something
of an overview,

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showing you various
forms and characteristics

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of some light sources.

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We can't address every
conceivable possibility.

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But what we can do is tweak
your curiosity, I hope,

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so that you pay attention, very
close attention, to what you're

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seeing as you change
your own light sources,

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looking at the
shadows for example.

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How do they and they
and the highlights

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change as you move
your light source?

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And observe exactly what's
going on when you make even

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some very minimal changes.

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Let's start with a very simple
piece of equipment, a lightbox.

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It's really easy
to use when you're

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working with
transparent material,

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just by placing
your work directly

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on top of the lightbox.

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But you'll see
also, later, it can

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be also another general
source of lighting.

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So let's start with a picture
of these two petri dishes

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growing E. coli.

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So that works.

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In this image, we're seeing
small pieces of colored plastic

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shapes, about 3 millimeters
across that are organizing,

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or self-assembling
at the interface

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between two solutions.

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They're becoming a flat
assemblage at that interface.

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And all I did was put
the glass container

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holding all the material
on the lightbox.

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And here, I'm making images
of sugar crystals growing

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on sticks.

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You know, they serve
you that sometimes

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when you order a cup of coffee.

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So here is one rendition
on a lightbox of the sugar,

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and what I decided to
do for the next one

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to simply invert the image,
which we've seen before.

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Here's a picture that I
made a number of years ago,

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which I still like.

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It's a picture about light,
a metaphor about light.

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It was one of
those lucky efforts

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when I just set up a magnifier
and the paper, [laughs]

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and in about 30 seconds,
I got the picture!

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(Very unusual, by the
way!) So the image

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is intended to suggest a process
of etching with light when

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we talked about it in
our book No Small Matter,

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about nanoscience.

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In this image of something I
assume you recognize by now,

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we see a different
kind of lighting

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that you've seen from previous
images of the music box.

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I shot from above
with mostly daylight,

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and then I turned
on a little bit more

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light from a
Tungsten lamp above.

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This is specific
to this situation,

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but you might find
it helpful in yours.

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Look what happens when you
just simply click and turn

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a light on.

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From the light being off,
to the light being on,

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you'll see how the
image drastically

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changes by just adding
an additional lamp

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from above this fishing reel.

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Yup [laugh], that's
what it is, by the way,

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it is a fishing reel placed in a
translucent, green garbage can.

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[laughs] I thought it was fun
to see what kind of quality

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I could get by shooting into
a plastic, translucent garbage

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can.

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Very specific to say the least.

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Again, just by adding one
additional light -- this time,

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inside the vacuum chamber I'm
imaging ' we see what starts

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as this kind of image,
and becomes this image.

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You'll see how it really
changes with the simple addition

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of just one light.

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In this image of a
triangular-shaped water drop --

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it's actually an etched area on
a surface onto which we placed

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water ' you can see the
reflection of the lamp

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on the water drop.

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We just directed a
lamp onto the water.

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That's considered
direct lighting.

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When I shine the
lamp onto a card,

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in this case, a gold
card, the light then

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bounced back onto the
water drop and you'll

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see a completely different
quality of lighting.

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This is called bounce lighting.

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The bounce gives us
diffuse lighting.

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Let's compare the two.

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Let's look at a
quick test that I

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made for us to see the
difference between two

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kinds of bounces.

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In this case, the
bounce lighting

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will used as fill lighting.

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We'll use a white card and
then we'll fill with a mirror.

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The main source of light
is daylight from a window.

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So, here's an image of
the inside of the watch

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that we've seen before,
just with daylight

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on an overcast day.

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Here, I added a white card
on the side of the watch

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for a fill.

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Here is a mirror reflecting
the daylight, again, as a fill,

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onto the watch.

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Let's go back to the original
'just daylight'; then the card;

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then the mirror; back
to the watch alone;

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then adding a card; then
adding just the mirror.

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Let's zoom in to see
the subtle differences

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in each of these cases.

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Now depending on what
your material is,

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you might see much
more dramatic changes.

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But I encourage you to
experiment with these ideas.

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By the way, here's
another image I

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made, this time using both the
card and the mirror as a fill.

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Let's see them all together.

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Light is all about
shadows as well.

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And it is quite remarkable
how small changes can

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change the shadow in images.

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How a powerful
direct light source

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can produce a significant
shadow, and that shadow does,

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in this image, become a very
strong compositional element.

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Here's where I'm using the
light on this wafer showing

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the chip that sits next to it.

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In this particular image,
I was playing around;

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I decided to just use a slant
of light -- uh, maybe, uh,

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Emily Dickenson would
be happy with that.

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On this image, I
decided just to make

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sure the light was
covering the entire wafer.

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I actually like the
first one better,

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but it's something
to think about,

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about using light in terms
of making compositions.

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In this image,
I'm using a shadow

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to better communicate what
the grading on the surface

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of this plastic is doing.

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It's diffracting the light
into different wavelengths.

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I produced the shadow
by placing a card

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in front of the light source.

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See how the image
looks without the card.

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Shadows alone can tell a story.

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Here, we're trying to show
something called the Marangoni

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effect; you know, when you twirl
a glass of wine we see some --

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what some people
call 'tears of wine'.

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It's a complex phenomenon.

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In this image, I
tried for quite a

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while to make an image
depicting the Maragoni effect.

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Not at all successful.

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Finally, thinking that
I should concentrate

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on the glass, and the shadow
that is being produced,

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then I finally focused in
on what is the Marangoni

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effect on its own, as a shadow.

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Now, for example, looking at
this small assemblage, which

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is about two centimeters across,
I lit this with one light.

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It's a monopoint, it's somewhat
of a fiber optic source.

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And you could see carefully,
if you look at this image,

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where does the light
source come from,

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and hopefully you will figure
out that if the shadow is here,

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then the light source
has to be around here.

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In this next one, I added
a second light source

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that not only lights the
device as light to it,

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but it also adds another shadow.

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And in this next one,
the second light source

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has been altered in terms of
its direction and the height

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because the shadow that it casts
is slightly longer and even

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more so in this
final image where

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the light, the
second light source,

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is very low compared
to where it was.

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And you know that again
because the shadow

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is considerably longer.

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Now, why bother
looking at all this?

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It really is, once
again, learning

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to see so that when you play
with your own light sources

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with your own
devices, you're going

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to pay not only great attention
to lighting of your device,

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but the shadows that the
lighting will be producing.

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It's important.

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It might not seem that way
at this point, but [laughs],

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I promise you, it
really is important.