August 22, 1908. 
THE GARDENING WORLD . 
54 1 
Photography for Garden Ltovers. 
By the Rev. F. C. Lambert, M.A., F.R.P.S. 
(Continued, -from -page 487.) 
IV.—Lighting the Subject. 
For our present purpose it is convenient 
to divide all visible objects into two 
classes—those which are self-luminous, 
like the sun, a candle, or lamp, etc., and 
those which are visible to us by reason 
of the light falling on them from some 
self-luminous source of light. It is this 
second class that we as garden photo¬ 
graphers are interested in, and it is im¬ 
portant to recognise one or two funda¬ 
mental facts because these will give us 
the key of the general situation. 
Now when daylight, that is, white light, 
falls upon any object—let us say a green 
leaf—two things happen. Part of the light 
passes into the leaf and is absorbed and 
lost to view, and the other part is reflected 
back again and gives us what we call the 
^ WlTLclooi 
FigS 
on a table in the centre of the room and 
view it from various standpoints. We 
shall see four things. First, a small, 
strong patch of bright light if the Apple 
has a smooth, shining surface; secondly, 
we see a certain amount of light green 
on the side towards the window; thirdly, 
on the side away from the window we no¬ 
tice that the green looks a good deal 
darker on this side, so that we think of 
it as shade rather than colour. In other 
words, this green object gives us light 
and shade. Lastly, on the white paper 
is a cast shadow—caused by the object 
cutting off the window light. If the sun 
be shining or light be strong, this cast 
shadow will show a fairly well-marked 
outline or form. The first and last of 
* \a/ltuLoo5 ^ ^ Wrn.'tLooi ^ 
Plan of Room showing relative position of window , T, Table; C, Camera. 
colour of the object. But that is not quite 
all. We notice that we have rough and 
smooth green leaves, so that when we say 
light is reflected by the green leaf we 
really include the reflection proper and 
also scattering of light. Hence with a 
smooth leaf like that of the Ivy or Laurel 
for instance, the leaf does not always 
look green in every position, but if held at 
a certain angle it is merely a bright, 
shiny surface with little or no pronounced 
colour, and in fact it is reflecting sky 
light. Hence in some photographs we get 
patches of white among the leaves. At 
the outset, then, we must bear in mind to 
trv and avoid viewing our subject from 
such an angle of illumination that it 
gives more of these shiny patches than 
can possibly be avoided. 
Next let us place a green Apple on a 
sheet of white blotting paper and put it 
these four elements we may not always 
see in every object as they depend on the 
smoothness of surface and strength of 
source of light, but we practically always 
have the second and third elements, and 
it is on the management of them that to 
a great extent the difference between an 
ordinarv and a pleasing and pictorial re¬ 
sult depends. 
I have made four special studies for 
this chapter, so that the reader may see 
for himself (if only the reproductions will 
lend their best aid) how a change of posi¬ 
tion of subject and camera in an ordinary 
room will afford a variety of effects. 
For my object I select a pale pink Car¬ 
nation in a vase of very dark green glass, 
and also an Apple of reddish-yellow 
colour. The table stand, previously de¬ 
scribed, is covered with a sheet of dark 
brown paper. 
In the sketch plan of the room, Figs. 
1, 2, 3 and 4, we have a small room with 
one window. In Fig. 1 we have the 
camera C placed near to and with its 
back towards the window. The objects are 
A. Lighting from behind the camera. 
on the table T opposite the window. In 
Fig. A we see the resulting picture. 
As the source of light is behind the 
camera we have little or no shaded or 
shadow side of the objects visible, and the 
consequence is that the whole result is 
flat, that is,~lacking in relief. In fact, 
the flower reminds one of a specimen that 
has been crushed flat and dried. We now 
move our table a little nearer the win¬ 
dow as in Fig. 2, and also move the 
camera a little distance away from the 
window, so that the light is falling over 
our left shoulder. The result is seen in 
Fig. B. Here we at once notice a little 
shade on the Apple, and the blossom also 
is not quite so flat-looking, for we are 
getting the suggestion of light and shade 
about the petals. This is better than 
Fig. A, but still we have too much light 
in proportion to the shade for a quite 
pleasing result in a case of this kind. 
B. Light over left shoulder of operator. 
In the third position, Fig. C, the table 
stands sideways to the window and the 
camera is about as far froii the window 
as the stand is. The light is to our left 
