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Great Ways To Include Shadows In Your Pictures – Discussion

Dec 16, 2007 by Udi Tirosh Leave a Comment

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shadows_friends.jpgResults from the Shadows Assignment, in which you were asked to include shadows in your photographs.

We had 9 flickr submissions (two by Carlos – waytogo!) as well as 10 comments submissions – coming to a total of 19 submissions.

All images submitted were great and I had a hard time choosing the top four. I got those four as they each reflect a different technique of using shadows.

Rex AuerUsing a “plain” white background (a white wall, I guess) Brian really gives allot of emphasis to the shadow. This is a great example of using a shadow to echo the main subject. By using a single bare flash Brian casts a hard edged shadow on the background.

This hard shadow is the perfect compliment to the threatening position stand by Rex. Since the Flash is positioned below Rex, the shadow is cast higher then Rex, actually letting him occupy more space of the frame.

I’ve also noted that in my head the shadow’s feast is directed right at me. What can I say – not a wrestler I’d like to meet on a dark ally.

keep on walkingCarlos makes a wonderful use of the inversion technique. Take a fast glance on the image. It looks good, but something is disturbing to the eye.

Only on closer inspection we learn that the perceived girls in the picture are actually shadows, and the shadows are the girls.

Try and rotate the image. If you are using a laptop, rotate the laptop :)

ShadowsThis great image by anderspace takes the shadows assignment to the abstract realm. If I had to make a quick guess, I’d say that this is an architectural shot, but this is just a guess.

The light is getting “cookie”d by three different cookies: horizontal, squares and circles. Another thing going for this picture is the great geometrical division: rectangle on the third left and two triangles on the right.

chess 2.0Last and definitely not least is pateffon‘s Chess 2.0. Pateffon makes an excellent use of three shadows to create a light versus dark theme. The dark shadow by the white peons creates a great dialog with the dark peons.

This shot also gains some bonus points for using a unique light source. Can you identify the light?

Looks like pateffon has done some light painting to create the lighting on the whites. An ingenuous use of a flashlight shows me how far one can go with an empty wallet and a loaded brain.

As I said, there were lots of more great images. If you have submitted an image to the assignment, please post it to the DIYP flickr pool so it will be shared with all the readers. Also there were some other great images on the comment section, but they were not on flickr so I could not grab them – Mark, Marco, Randy, Aliaksandr and Caelea – Loved your shots, but for copyright issues, I can’t grab the image to display here.

Related Links:
– Eight Great Ways To Include Shadows In Your Pictures
– Shadows – What They Are And Where To Find Them
– DIYP Flickr pool
– Homemade Gridspot

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Filed Under: Inspiration, Tutorials Tagged With: light painting, shadows

About Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

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