Lights, camera and reaction!

"The eyes are the window to the soul" is an old English or Arab proverb. 

As an experiment, try taking out one of your family photographs and create a mask covering all of the photograph except where the persons eyes are. Do you see joy, happiness or sorrow?  Perhaps the person has a poker face and reveals very litttle about how they are feeling inside.

Look into their eyes and most often you'll see what photographers call "catch lights". There may be one or more light dots of different shapes in the eyes. If you went to a photography studio it would be possible to actually see minature umbrellas or soft boxes in the eyes. Outdoor photographs will have very sharp lights usually from a bright sun or softer lights in the eyes depending on how cloudy it is.

People always ask me if they should use a flash outdoors and the best answer is if you don't notice it. Art students learn how to create dimension in their paintings and photographers learn that a poorly used flash can often wash out the details. If you've ever been on a movie set you'll see that most of the day is spent setting up lights or blocking the sun if they are outdoors. It is a tedious process for the filmmaker to create natural looking light on film so that it looks believable at the theatre.

The eye sees an incredible amount of light exceeding the current capabilities of most digital cameras. The next time you plan to take a photograph of someone, look into their eyes and you'll be able to see the source of the light.   People don't have to smile to reveal their inner happiness.

Saying cheese is probably the worst saying that photographers invented. In other countries the equivalent is whiskey, eggplant, pepsi and omelette. In my opinion if you smile at someone they will smile back without looking like they are gritting their teeth. Save the cheese for the homemade pizza.