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How does light work? What are the different things it can do? Can it be controlled?

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How does light work, and how do we see it?

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by Chris Woodford. Last updated: August 26, 2020.

Were you ever scared of the dark? It's not surprising if you were, or if you still are today, because humans are creatures of the light, deeply programmed through millions of years of history to avoid the dark dangers of the night. Light is vitally important to us, but we don't always take the trouble to understand it. Why does it make some things appear to be different colors from others? Does it travel as particles or as waves? Why does it move so quickly? Let's take a closer look at some of these questions-let's shed some light on light!

Photo: Ordinary light looks white, but if you shine it through a prism (wedge) of glass, you can see that it's really made from a whole spectrum of colors.

What is light?

When we're very young, we have a very simple idea about light: the world is either light or dark and we can change from one to the other just by flicking a switch on the wall. But we soon learn that light is more complex than this.

Light arrives on our planet after a speedy trip from the Sun, 149 million km (93 million miles away). Light travels at 186,000 miles (300,000 km) per second, so the light you're seeing now was still tucked away in the Sun about eight minutes ago. Put it another way, light takes roughly twice as long to get from the Sun to Earth as it does to make a cup of coffee!

Light is a kind of energy

But why does light make this journey at all? As you probably know, the Sun is a nuclear fireball spewing energy in all directions. The light that we see it simply the one part of the energy that the Sun makes that our eyes can detect. When light travels between two places (from the Sun to the Earth or from a flashlight to the sidewalk in front of you on a dark night), energy makes a journey between those two points. The energy travels in the form of waves (similar to the waves on the sea but about 100 million times smaller)-a vibrating pattern of electricity and magnetism that we call electromagnetic energy. If our eyes could see electricity and magnetism, we might see each ray of light as a wave of electricity vibrating in one direction and a wave of magnetism vibrating at right angles to it. These two waves would travel in step and at the speed of light.

Picture: Light energy likes to travel outwards! Most natural light floods into our world from the Sun, shown here in a dramatic closeup, emitting a blast of radiation called a solar flare. Photo courtesy of NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) .

Is light a particle or a wave?

For hundreds of years, scientists have argued over whether light is really a wave at all. Back in the 17th century, the brilliant English scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)-one of the first people to study the matter in detail-thought light was a stream of "corpuscles" or particles. But his great rival, a no-less-brilliant Dutchman named Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), was quite adamant that light was made up of waves.

Photo: Isaac Newton argued that light was a stream of particles. Picture by William Thomas Fry courtesy of US Library of Congress.

Thus began a controversy that still rumbles on today-and it's easy to see why. In some ways, light behaves just like a wave: light reflects off a mirror, for example, in exactly the same way that waves crashing in from the sea "reflect" off sea walls and go back out again. In other ways, light behaves much more like a stream of particles-like bullets firing in rapid succession from a gun. During the 20th century, physicists came to believe that light could be both a particle and a wave at the same time. (This idea sounds quite simple, but goes by the rather complex name of wave-particle duality.)

The real answer to this problem is more a matter of philosophy and psychology than physics. Our understanding of the world is based on the way our eyes and brains interpret it. Sometimes it seems to us that light is behaving like a wave; sometimes it seems like light is a stream of particles. We have two mental pigeonholes and light doesn't quite fit into either of them. It's like the glass slipper that doesn't fit either of the ugly sisters (particle or wave). We can pretend it nearly fits both of them, some of the time. But in truth, light is simply what it is-a form of energy that doesn't neatly match our mental scheme of how things should be. One day, someone will come up with a better way of describing and explaining it that makes perfect sense in all situations.

How light behaves

Light waves (let's assume they are indeed waves for now) behave in four particularly interesting and useful ways that we describe as reflection, refraction, diffraction, and interference.

Reflection

The most obvious thing about light is that it will reflect off things. The only reason we can see the things around us is that light, either from the Sun or from something like an electric lamp here on Earth, reflects off them into our eyes. Cut off the source of the light or stop it from reaching your eyes and those objects disappear. They don't cease to exist, but you can no longer see them.

Photo: Now that's what I call a mirror! In fact, it's six segments of the huge mirror from the James Webb Space Telescope. Picture by courtesy of NASA.

Reflection can happen in two quite different ways. If you have a smooth, highly polished surface and you shine a narrow beam of light at it, you get a narrow beam of light reflected back off it. This is called specular reflection and it's what happens if you shine a flashlight or laser into a mirror: you get a well-defined beam of light bouncing back towards you. Most objects aren't smooth and highly polished: they're quite rough. So, when you shine light onto them, it's scattered all over the place. This is called diffuse reflection and it's how we see most objects around us as they scatter the light falling on them.

If you can see your face in something, it's specular reflection; if you can't see your face, it's diffuse reflection. Polish up a teaspoon and you can see your face quite clearly. But if the spoon is dirty, all the bits of dirt and dust are scattering light in all directions and your face disappears.

Read more about this in our article on how mirrors work.>

Refraction

Light waves travel in straight lines through empty space (a vacuum), but more interesting things happen to them when they travel through other materials-especially when they move from one material to another. That's not unusual: we do the same thing ourselves.

Have you noticed how your body slows down when you try to walk through water? You go racing down the beach at top speed but, as soon as you hit the sea, you slow right down. No matter how hard you try, you cannot run as quickly through water as through air. The dense liquid is harder to push out of the way, so it slows you down. Exactly the same thing happens to light if you shine it into water, glass, plastic or another more dense material: it slows down quite dramatically. This tends to make light waves bend-something we usually call refraction.

How refraction works

Photo: Laser beams bending (refracting) through a crystal. Photo by Warren Gretz courtesy of
US Department of Energy/National Renewable Energy Laboratory (DOE/NREL).

You've probably noticed that water can bend light. You can see this for yourself by putting a straw in a glass of water. Notice how the straw appears to kink at the point where the water meets the air above it. The bending happens not in the water itself but at the junction of the air and the water. You can see the same thing happening in this photo of laser light beams shining between two crystals. As the beams cross the junction, they bend quite noticeably.

Why does this happen? You may have learned that the speed of light is always the same, but that's only true when light travels in a vacuum. In fact, light travels more slowly in some materials than others. It goes more slowly in water than in air. Or, to put it another way, light slows down when it moves from air to water and it speeds up when it moves from water to air. This is what causes the straw to look bent. Let's look into this a bit more closely.

Imagine a light ray zooming along through the air at an angle to some water. Now imagine that the light ray is actually a line of people swimming along in formation, side-by-side, through the air. The swimmers on one side are going to enter the water more quickly than the swimmers on the other side and, as they do so, they are going to slow down-because people move more slowly in water than in air. That means the whole line is going to start slowing down, beginning with the swimmers at one side and ending with the swimmers on the other side some time later. That's going to cause the entire line to bend at an angle. This is exactly how light behaves when it enters water-and why water makes a straw look bent.

Refraction is amazingly useful. If you wear eyeglasses, you probably know that the lenses they contain are curved-shape pieces of glass or plastic that bend (refract) the light from the things you're looking at. Bending the light makes it seem to come from nearer or further away (depending on the type of lenses you have), which corrects the problem with your sight. To put it another way, your eyeglasses fix your vision by slowing down incoming light so it shifts direction slightly. Binoculars, telescopes, cameras, night vision goggles, and many other things with lenses work in exactly the same way (collectively we call these things optical equipment).

Although light normally travels in straight lines, you can make it bend round corners by shooting it down thin glass or plastic pipes called fiber-optic cables. Reflection and refraction are at work inside these "light pipes" to make rays of light follow an unusual path they wouldn't normally take.

Diffraction

Artwork: When light from a laser (1) passes through a narrow slit (2), the waves spread out (3) and form a diffraction pattern of light and dark bands (4). Different numbers, shapes, and sizes of slits produce more complex diffraction patterns.

We can hear sounds bending round doorways, but we can't see round corners-why is that? Like light, sound travels in the form of waves (they're very different kinds of waves, but the idea of energy traveling in a wave pattern is broadly the same). Sound waves tend to range in size from a few centimeters to a few meters, and they will spread out when they come to an opening that is roughly the same size as they are-something like a doorway, for example. If sound is rushing down a corridor in your general direction and there's a doorway opening onto the room where you're sitting, the sound waves will spread in through the doorway and travel to your ears. The same thing does not happen with light. But light will spread out in an identical way if you shine it on a tiny opening that's of roughly similar size to its wavelength. You may have noticed this effect, which is called diffraction, if you screw your eyes up and look at a streetlight in the dark. As your eyes close, the light seems to spread out in strange stripes as it squeezes through the narrow gaps between your eyelids and eyelashes. The tighter you close your eyes, the more the light spreads (until it disappears when you close your eyes completely).

Interference

If you stand above a calm pond (or a bath full of water) and dip your finger in (or allow a single drop to drip down to the water surface from a height), you'll see ripples of energy spreading outwards from the point of the impact. If you do this in two different places, the two sets of ripples will move toward one another, crash together, and form a new pattern of ripples called an interference pattern. Light behaves in exactly the same way. If two light sources produce waves of light that travel together and meet up, the waves will interfere with one another where they cross. In some places the crests of waves will reinforce and get bigger, but in other places the crest of one wave will meet the trough of another wave and the two will cancel out.

Photo: Thin-film interference makes the colors you see swirling around on the surface of soap bubbles.

Interference causes effects like the swirling, colored spectrum patterns on the surface of soap bubbles and the similar rainbow effect you can see if you hold a compact disc up to the light. What happens is that two reflected light waves interfere. One light wave reflects from the outer layer of the soap film that wraps around the air bubble, while a second light wave carries on through the soap, only to reflect off its inner layer. The two light waves travel slightly different distances so they get out of step. When they meet up again on the way back out of the bubble, they interfere. This makes the color of the light change in a way that depends on the thickness of the soap bubble. As the soap gradually thins out, the amount of interference changes and the color of the reflected light changes too. Read more about this in our article on thin-film interference.

Interference is very colorful, but it has practical uses too. A technique called interferometry can use interfering laser beams to measure incredibly small distances.

Where does light come from?

Photo: Arc welding gives off light when metals are melted by an electric current. The atoms are getting quite excited here! Picture by Martin Wright, courtesy of US Navy.

If you've read our article on energy, you'll know that energy is something that doesn't just turn up out of the blue: it has to come from somewhere. There is a fixed amount of energy in the Universe and no process ever creates or destroys energy-it simply turns some of the existing energy into one or more other forms. This idea is a basic law of physics called the conservation of energy and it applies to light as much as anything else. So where then does light comes from? How exactly do you "make" light?

It turns out that light is made inside atoms when they get "excited". That's not excited in the silly, giggling sense of the word, but in a more specialized scientific sense. Think of the electrons inside atoms as a bit like fireflies sitting on a ladder. When an atom absorbs energy, for one reason or another, the electrons get promoted to higher energy levels. Visualize one of the fireflies moving up to a higher rung on the ladder. Unfortunately, the ladder isn't quite so stable with the firefly wobbling about up there, so the fly takes very little persuading to leap back down to where it was before. In so doing, it has to give back the energy it absorbed-and it does that by flashing its tail.

That's pretty much what happens when an atom absorbs energy. An electron inside it jumps to a higher energy level, but makes the atom unstable. As the electron returns to its original level, it gives back the energy as a flash of light called a photon.

How atoms make light

Atoms are the tiny particles from which all things are made. Simplified greatly, an atom looks a bit like our solar system, which has the Sun at its center and planets orbiting around it.

Most of the atom's mass is concentrated in the nucleus at the center (red), made from protons and neutrons packed together.

Electrons (blue) are arranged around the nucleus in shells (sometimes called orbitals, or energy levels). The more energy an electron has, the farther it is from the nucleus.

Atoms make light in a three-step process:

1. They start off in their stable "ground state" with electrons in their normal places.

2. When they absorb energy, one or more electrons are kicked out farther from the nucleus into higher energy levels. We say the atom is now "excited."

3. However, an excited atom is unstable and quickly tries to get back to its stable, ground state. So it gives off the excess energy it originally gained as a photon of energy (wiggly line): a packet of light.

How light really works

Once you understand how atoms take in and give out energy, the science of light makes sense in a very interesting new way. Think about mirrors, for example. When you look at a mirror and see your face reflected, what's actually going on? Light (maybe from a window) is hitting your face and bouncing into the mirror. Inside the mirror, atoms of silver (or another very reflective metal) are catching the incoming light energy and becoming excited. That makes them unstable, so they throw out new photons of light that travel back out of the mirror towards you. In effect, the mirror is playing throw and catch with you using photons of light as the balls!

The same idea can help us explain things like photocopiers and solar panels (flat sheets of the chemical element silicon that turn sunlight into electricity). Have you ever wondered why solar panels look black even when they're in full sunlight? That's because they're reflecting back little or none of the light that falls on them and absorbing all the energy instead. (Things that are black absorb light, and reflect little or none, while things that are white reflect virtually all the light that falls on them, and absorb little or none. That's why it's best to wear white clothes on a scorching hot day.) Where does the energy go in a solar panel if it's not reflected? If you shine sunlight onto the solar cells in a solar panel, the atoms of silicon in the cells catch the energy from the sunlight. Then, instead of producing new photons, they produce a flow of electricity instead through what's known as the photoelectric (or photovoltaic) effect. In other words, the incoming solar energy (from the Sun) is converted to outgoing electricity.

Hot light and cold light

What would make an atom absorb energy in the first place? You might give it some energy by heating it up. If you put an iron bar in a blazing fire, the bar would eventually heat up so much that it glowed red hot. What's happening is that you're supplying energy to the iron atoms inside the bar and getting them excited. Their electrons are being promoted to higher energy levels and making the atoms unstable. As the electrons return to lower levels, they're giving off their energy as photons of red light-and that's why the bar seems to glow red. The fire gives off light for exactly the same reason.

Old-style electric lamps work this way too. They make light by passing electricity through a very thin wire filament so it gets incredibly hot. Excited atoms inside the hot filament turn the electrical energy passing through them into light you can see by constantly giving off photons. When we make light by heating things, that's called incandescence. So old-style lamps are sometimes called incandescent lamps.

Photo: A glow stick makes "cold light" using luminescence. Photo by Demetrius Kennon courtesy of US Navy.

You can also get atoms excited in other ways. Energy-saving light bulbs that use fluorescence are more energy efficient because they make atoms crash about and collide, making lots of light without making heat. In effect, they make cold light rather than the hot light produced by older-style, energy-wasting bulbs. Creatures like fireflies make their light through a chemical process using a substance called luciferin. The broad name for the various different ways of making light by exciting the atoms inside things is luminescence.

(Let's note in passing that light has some other interesting effects when it gets involved in chemistry. That's how photochromic sunglass lenses work.)

Light of many colors

Photo: A rainbow splits sunlight ("white" light) into its component colors because it bends different colors ( wavelengths of light) by different amounts. Shorter wavelengths are bent more than longer wavelengths, so blue light is bent more than red. That's why blue is always on the inside of a rainbow and red is on the outside.

Color (spelled "colour" in the UK) is one of the strangest things about light. Here's one obvious riddle: if we see things because sunlight is reflected off them, how come everything isn't the same color? Why isn't everything the color of sunlight? You probably know the answer to this already. Sunlight isn't light of just one color-it's what we call white light, made up of all the different colors mixed together. We know this because we can see rainbows, those colorful curves that appear in the sky when droplets of water split sunlight into its component colors by refracting (bending) different colors of light by different amounts.

Why does a tomato look red? When sunlight shines on a tomato, the red part of the sunlight is reflected back again off the tomato's skin, while all the other colors of lights are absorbed (soaked into) the tomato, so you don't see them. That's just as true of a blue book, which reflects only the blue part of sunlight but absorbs light of other colors.

Why does a tomato appear red and not blue or green? Think back to how atoms make light. When sunlight falls on a tomato, the incoming light energy excites atoms in the tomato's skin. Electrons are promoted to higher energy levels to capture the energy, but soon fall back down again. As they do so, they give off photons of new light-and that just happens to correspond to the kind of light that our eyes see as red. Tomatoes, in other words, are like precise optical machines programmed to produce photons of red light when sunlight falls on them.

If you shone light of other colors on tomatoes, what would happen? Let's suppose you made some green light by passing sunlight through a piece of green plastic (something we call a filter). If you shone this on a red tomato, the tomato would appear black. That's because tomatoes absorb green light. There is simply no red light for them to reflect.

Photo: A tomato reflects the red part of sunlight and absorbs all the other colors.

It's not how it is-it's how you see it

Many of the things we think are true of the world turn out to be true only of ourselves. We think tomatoes are red, but in fact we only see them that way. If our eyes were built differently, we might see the light photons that tomatoes produce as light of a totally different color. And there's no real way any of us can be sure that what we see as "red" is the same as what anyone else sees as red: there's no way to prove that my red is the same as yours. Some of the most interesting aspects of the things we see come down to the psychology of perception (how our eyes see the world and how our brains make sense of that), not the physics of light. Color blindness and optical illusions are two examples of this.

Understanding light is a brilliant example of what being a scientist is all about. Science isn't like other subjects. It's not like history (a collection of facts about past events) or law (the rights and wrongs of how people behave). It's an entirely different way of thinking about the world and making sense of it. When you understand the science of light, you feel you've turned part of the world inside out-you're looking from the inside, seeing everything in a totally new way, and understanding for the first time why it all makes sense. Science can throw a completely different light on the world-it can even throw light on light itself!

Find out more

On this website

On other websites

Optics for kids: Simple and fun introductory site from the Optical Society of America.

Books

For younger readers

The Illuminating World of Light with Max Axiom, Super Scientist by Emily Sohn and Nick Derington. Capstone, 2019. A 32-page, app-linked graphic novel (comic-style) introduction for ages 8-14, aimed at engaging reluctant readers who might not pick up an ordinary school science book.

Light in a Flash by Georgia Amson-Bradshaw. Franklin Watts, 2017. Facts, quizzes, and experiments lighten this 32-page introduction for ages 7-9.

A Project Guide to Light and Optics by Colleen Kessler. Mitchell Lane, 2012. A hands-on, activity-led guide to light for ages 9-12.

Scientific Pathways: Light by Chris Woodford. Rosen, 2013. This is one of my own books, also for ages 9-12, and it briefly charts the history of our efforts to understand light (Previously published as Routes of Science: Light, Blackbirch, 2004.)

Horrible Science: Frightening Light by Nick Arnold. Scholastic, 1999. A 160-page, text-led read for ages 8-12.

Light by David Burnie. DK, 1998. One of the well-known DK Eyewitness books combining science, technology, and history in an easily digestible volume. Best for ages 9-12 (though interesting for older people too).

For older readers

General books

Textbooks

Optics by Eugene Hecht. Addison-Wesley, 2016. The classic undergraduate textbook on light and optics-and the one I used myself some years ago.

Optics by K.K.Sharma. Academic Press, 2006. An alternative textbook for students, but with more about optical applications.

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Light science for kids - A simple introduction to optics

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by Chris Woodford. Last updated: August 26, 2020. Were you ever scared of the dark? It's not surprising if you were, or if you still are today, because humans are creatures of the light, deeply programmed through millions of years of history to avoid the dark dangers of the night.

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Having a good storyline, a capable film crew, well-cast actors, and an amazing set design may all be essential components to creating a successful film-but it also has to look visually compelling if you want it to have a meaningful impact on the viewers. This requires technical knowledge in cinematography, which means using the most appropriate cinematic shots and film lighting techniques to get your message across perfectly in each and every scene.

Proper lighting techniques are essential in creating stylized and natural-looking film scenes that look much closer to real life as digital sensors and film don't react as well to light as our eyes do. This is why film sets always seem to be overly lit or packed with many different light sources that serve different purposes.

If you're aiming to become a cinematographer, director, writer, or any other person who holds a creative role in a film crew, you'll need to learn some of the basic lighting techniques typically used in filmmaking.

12 Film Lighting Techniques

Cinematography lighting is closely similar to photography lighting. You've probably heard many of these techniques, especially if you've done some studio photography in the past, but it helps to learn how they can uniquely benefit filmmakers in creating different moods and atmospheres in every scene.

It's also important to note that these techniques are not clear-cut, so many of them can actually take the form of several other lighting techniques. What matters is that you learn what each is good for and are able to make the best use of them for achieving your cinematic goals.

Key Lighting Fill Lighting Back Lighting Side Lighting Practical Light Hard Lighting Soft Lighting Bounce Lighting High Key Low Key Motivated Lighting Ambient Light

Key Lighting

The key light is also known as the main light of a scene or subject. This means it's normally the strongest light in each scene or photo. Even if your lighting crew is going for a complicated multi-light setup, the key light is usually the first to be set up.

However, just because it's your "main" light doesn't mean it always has to be facing your subject. You can place your key light anywhere, even from the side or behind your subject to create a darker mood. Just avoid placing it near or right beside the camera as this will create flat and direct lighting for your subject.

Fill Lighting

As the name suggests, this technique is used to "fill in" and remove the dark, shadowy areas that your key light creates. It is noticeably less intense and placed in the opposite direction of the key light, so you can add more dimension to your scene.

Because the aim of fill lighting is to eliminate shadows, it's advisable to place it a little further and/or diffuse it with a reflector (placed around 3/4 opposite to the key light) to create softer light that spreads out evenly. Many scenes do well with just the key and fill studio lighting as they are enough to add noticeable depth and dimension to any object.

Backlighting

Backlighting is used to create a three-dimensional scene, which is why it is also the last to be added in a three-point lighting setup. This also faces your subject-a little higher from behind so as to separate your subject from the background.

As with fill lighting, you'll want to also diffuse your backlight so it becomes less intense and covers a wider area of your subject. For example, for subject mid-shots, you'll want to also light up the shoulders and base of the person's neck instead of just the top of their head. This technique can also be used on its own, without the key and fill lights if you're aiming for a silhouette.

Side Lighting

Needless to say, side lighting is for illuminating your scene from the side, parallel to your subject. It is often used on its own or with just a faint fill light to give your scene a dramatic mood or what's referred to as "chiaroscuro" lighting. To really achieve this effect, your side light should be strong so as to create strong contrast and low-key lighting that reveals the texture and accentuates the contours of your subject.

When used with a fill light, it's advisable to lessen the fill light's intensity down to 1/8 of that of the side light to keep the dramatic look and feel of a scene.

Practical Lighting

Practical lighting is the use of regular, working light sources like lamps, candles, or even the TV. These are usually intentionally added in by the set designer or lighting crew to create a cinematic nighttime scene. They may sometimes be used to also give off subtle lighting for your subject.

However, practical lights are not always easy to work with, as candles and lamps are typically not strong enough to light up a subject. A hidden, supplementary motivated light (more on that later) may be used or dimmers can be installed in lamps so the light's intensity can be adjusted.

Bounce Lighting

Bounce lighting is about literally bouncing the light from a strong light source towards your subject or scene using a reflector or any light-colored surface, such as walls and ceilings. Doing so creates a bigger area of light that is more evenly spread out.

If executed properly, bounce lights can be used to create a much softer key, fill, top, side, or backlighting, especially if you don't have a diffuser or softbox

Soft Lighting

Soft lighting doesn't refer to any lighting direction, but it's a technique nonetheless. Cinematographers make use of soft lighting (even when creating directional lighting with the techniques above) for both aesthetic and situational reasons: to reduce or eliminate harsh shadows, create drama, replicate subtle lighting coming from outside, or all of the above.

Hard Lighting

Hard light can be sunlight or a strong light source. It's usually unwanted, but it certainly has cinematic benefits. You can create hard lighting with direct sunlight or a small, powerful light source.

Despite it creating harsh shadows, hard lighting is great for drawing attention to your main subject or to an area of the scene, highlighting your subject's contour, and creating a strong silhouette.

High Key

High key refers to a style of lighting used to create a very bright scene that's visually shadowless, often close to overexposure. Lighting ratios are ignored so all light sources would have pretty much the same intensity. This technique is used in many movies, TV sitcoms, commercials, and music videos today, but it first became popular during the classic Hollywood period in the 1930s and 40s.

Low Key

Being the opposite of high key, low key lighting for a scene would mean a lot of shadows and possibly just one strong key light source. The focus is on the use of shadows and how it creates mystery, suspense, or drama for a scene and character instead of on the use of lighting, which makes it great for horror and thriller films.

Motivated Lighting

Motivated lighting is used to imitate a natural light source, such as sunlight, moonlight, and street lamps at night. It's also the kind of lighting that enhances practical lights, should the director or cinematographer wish to customize the intensity or coverage of the latter using a separate light source.

To ensure that your motivated lighting looks as natural as possible, several methods are used, such as the use of filters to create window shadows and the use of colored gels to replicate the warm, bright yellow light coming from the sun or the cool, faint bluish light from the moon.

Ambient Lighting

Using artificial light sources is still the best way to create a well-lit scene that's closely similar to or even better than what we see in real life. However, there's no reason not to make use of ambient or available lights that already exist in your shooting location, may it be sunlight, moonlight, street lamps, or even electric store signs.

When shooting during the day, you could always do it outdoors and make use of natural sunlight (with or without a diffuser) and supplement the scene with a secondary light for your subject (bounced or using a separate light source). Early in the morning and late in the afternoon or early evening are great times for shooting outdoors if you want soft lighting. The only downside is that the intensity and color of sunlight are not constant, so remember to plan for the weather and sun placement.

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Having a good storyline, a capable film crew, well-cast actors, and an amazing set design may all be essential components to creating a successful film-but it also has to look visually compelling if you want it to have a meaningful impact on the viewers.

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Learn the basics of 3-point lighting!

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Frameforest Filmschool: 3 point lighting

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3-Point Lighting isn't enough? How about 5-Point Lighting?

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Learn how lighting is done for film (and also TV).

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5 Lighting Concepts Every Cinematographer Needs To Know

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Learn how the pros light the stage.

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Stage lighting is an art form. It's used to illuminate a performance venue and make an impact on an event, giving visual direction and shaping the environment. There's a lot to learn about stage lighting. In this post, we'll cover some of the foundations of stage lighting that are helpful for anyone in the live performance space to understand.

What's the Goal of Stage Lighting?

The goal of stage lighting isn't limited to one objective. Stage lighting can help you capture the audience's attention and enhance a stage production in a number of ways. The right stage lighting can:

Illuminate the stage: The most basic objective for stage lighting is to illuminate the performers, sets and props so the audience can clearly see everything they're meant to see onstage. Inadequate lighting can take away from a production. For example, dim light will make it harder for actors' facial expressions to come through - even to audience members seated close to the stage. Illumination is also important for the people onstage, so they can see where they're going and see the other dancers, actors or musicians.

Highlight different areas: Stage lighting can also help you direct audience members' eyes where they should go. In the most dramatic instances, the majority of a stage may be dark with just one spotlight shining on a focal point. In many other instances, the lighting engineer can start with a wash, which covers a wide area and acts as a base layer of light. Then, they can use accenting to guide the audience's attention to a particular area, like a speaker in the foreground.

Set the scene: Lighting can also help you create the visual you want in a scene. In some instances, this means creating optical illusions with lights. You may use a moving light to make it appear as though the sun is rising, or make the stage go dark as an actor flips a prop light switch in a room. You can also use backlit scrims to create the illusion of a starry night, a sunny day or even a fire.

Control the mood: Stage lighting can also have a major effect on the mood. The idea is to match the lighting to the content of the show to encourage the right emotions in the audience. This could mean a soft, warm glow for a happy scene in a play or dim, cool hues for a sad ballad during a concert. Certain colors are associated with different moods. For example, blue is often associated with sadness, and red is associated with intense feelings, like love or aggression.

Stage Lighting Terminology

To better understand the topic of stage lighting, it helps to familiarize yourself with some stage lighting names for items and concepts that commonly come up in this field:

Lantern: Though you may simply hear them referred to as lights or lighting fixtures, the lighting units used in stage lighting are also commonly called lanterns. In Europe, the more common term is luminaire.

Lamps: Lamp is the correct term for what you may call a light bulb in a domestic lighting context. In stage lighting, the bulbs that go into light fixtures are consistently called lamps.

Wash: A wash, also known as a fill, is a wide swath of lighting that provides consistent coverage across a stage. Floodlights are typically used to create a wash.

Intensity: Intensity is the term lighting professionals use to describe a stage light's level of brightness. A more intense light will draw more electrical power. Decreasing the electrical supply causes the light to become dimmer, or lower in intensity.

Diffusion: Diffusion is the process of dispersing light to soften it. A diffused light is the opposite of an intense beam with hard edges. Lighting engineers can use diffusion material, which is like a colorless gel, to soften the light.

Barndoors: Barndoors are sets of either two or four metal flaps that affix to the front of a stage light to cast a widespread, soft beam of light. The barndoors shape the light and create a harder edge where the light stops so the beam won't illuminate areas you would prefer to remain dark.

Shutters: Shutters are similar to barndoors, but they are built into ellipsoidal lighting fixtures. By moving the shutters, you can manipulate the shape of the light and block certain areas.

Gel: A gel, also called a color filter, is what lighting professionals use to change the color of a beam of light. Gels consist of clear sheets with a translucent colored sheet of plastic in the middle. By sliding different gels into the color frame on a light, you can use the same light to cast many different colors.

Gobo: A gobo, also called a pattern, is a thin metal disc with a pattern cut out, like a stencil. By placing the gobo in a holder in front of a light source, the light will cast a pattern on the stage. This pattern could create an image, like a city skyline, or it could simply add some texture to the light.

Snoot: A snoot, also nicknamed a top hat after its appearance, is an opaque, cylindrical accessory you can place over a light to reduce flare or stray light that can come from lighting fixtures.

Cyclorama: A cyclorama, or a "cyc" for short, is a large cloth backdrop used on a stage. It's typically concave, stretching in an arc from one side of the stage to the other. You can use lighting equipment to project light or images onto the cyclorama.

Types of Stage Lighting Fixtures

There are several types of lighting fixtures that are common in stage lighting design. Each type is designed for a unique purpose, so most stage lighting setups will include multiple types of lanterns. These fixtures may include:

1. Ellipsoidal

An ellipsoidal reflector spotlight produces an intense, well-defined beam of light that is perfect for front lighting. You can adjust the focus with soft or sharp edges, use shutters to adjust the shape of the lighting and keep the light from bleeding into areas you want to remain dark. These lights can also hold gobos and gels so you can create patterns and colors with them.

2. Followspot

A followspot is a type of spotlight, so it casts an intense, focused beam of light to give extra focus to a performer moving around onstage. These lights are especially useful when you aren't sure what path a performer will take and need to respond in real time since they are traditionally operated manually. In addition to adjusting the positioning of the followspot, the operator can also adjust the size and the intensity level of the beam, and they can easily adjust the color with built-in panels.

3. Fresnel

These lights are named after their inventor, Augustin Fresnel. What makes these lights unique is that they have a lens made of concentric rings. The light is brightest at the center ring and softens the closer it gets to the edges. These lights are a good choice for washes, though they can also produce more narrow beams of light with a soft edge. You cannot use shutters or patterns on these lights.

4. PAR Can

A parabolic aluminized reflector (PAR) can is a staple in stage lighting. PAR cans are sealed-beam lamps in cylindrical metal casings. These lights are similar to vehicle headlights and are simplistic in their design. They don't give you precision with focus or zoom options, but you can adjust them to create horizontal or vertical beams. You can choose from standard and LED options and can use gels to create colored lights.

5. Floodlight

A floodlight is a large fixture that an operator can move horizontally or tilt vertically. They don't have any lenses, so floodlights are determined solely by the reflector and lamp type. In symmetrical floodlights, light is distributed equally above and below the horizontal axis of the lamp. In asymmetrical floodlights, the light spreads much further in one direction than the other in the horizontal axis. Like PAR cans, floodlights cannot support patterns, beam adjustments or other accessories besides color gels and diffusion.

6. Cyc Light

Remember that a "cyc" is a large cloth backdrop. Accordingly, a cyc light is an open-faced fixture that gives an even wash of light over a cyc or another type of vertical surface. These lights can be positioned on the floor or hung close to the backdrop so they can effectively cover the backdrop in a sheet of light.

7. Strip Light

Strip lights can also be used as cyc lights, but these lights are wider than most cyc lights. They consist of multiple lamps arranged in a horizontal row. A strip light is what many lighting engineers use to add a large amount of color coverage to a stage. They can also allow you to mix colors. These lights come in both standard and LED varieties.

Lighting Positions

One of the foundational stage lighting concepts to understand is lighting positions. The main stage lighting positions that lighting designers factor into their designs include:

Front lights: Front lights are the primary source of lighting for a performance. In many situations, you'll use front lighting to provide a wash for the whole stage. Fixtures that point forward toward performers' faces are an important starting point, but by themselves, they will make a performer appear flat.

Backlighting: To give a more dimensional appearance where the actor pops from the background, you also need backlighting and downlighting. Backlights are positioned toward the back of the stage, behind the performers. You can position backlights at different points vertically. PAR can fixtures work especially well for backlighting. You can change the color and intensity to customize the look.

Downlighting: Another way to add dimension to stage lighting is with downlighting. Downlighting can vary in intensity. Note that some designers use the term "downlighting" to mean lights that are positioned at the feet and cast light upwards, and others use the term to mean lights that are positioned above the stage and shine straight down or down at an angle.

Side and high side lighting: You also need lights positioned at the horizontal edges of the stage to illuminate performers from either side. High side lighting refers specifically to side lighting that is positioned high so it shines on performers' heads and shoulders. These lights are critical for making actors' facial expressions clearly visible.

Lighting Colors and Textures

With the tools of color and texture at their disposal, lighting designers can heavily influence the visuals and atmosphere of a production. As we've seen, gels allow lighting technicians to change the color of lights. They can even layer or combine gels to create color variations. In using different colored lights to illuminate a scene, lighting designers may take one of these approaches:

Monochromatic: A monochromatic color scheme is limited to different shades of the same color. This is a good choice when you want to keep the lighting simple or emphasize one color.

Complementary: Complementary colors are opposite of each other on the color wheel. Pairing these opposites together is a good way to create contrast. For example, you could pair blue and yellow or red and green. You shouldn't layer complementary colors because they will create muddy hues.

Triads: Lighting designers can use three different colors in a scene for more visual variety. When these colors create a triangle on the color wheel, the color scheme is known as a triad. For example, you could combine red, green and blue or cyan, magenta and yellow.

Adjacent colors: By pairing adjacent colors - that is, colors next to each other on the color wheel - a lighting designer can create a faded look from one color to the next.

Cool or warm colors: You can also invoke a certain mood and color theme by combining colors of the same temperature. For example, combining red, orange and yellow can make the scene feel warm.

Colored lighting can invoke a certain mood or contribute to the overall feel of a scene, but that's not all. Changes in the lighting's color scheme can also act symbolically and be associated with certain themes or characters in a show. For example, a lighting designer for a production of " Swan Lake" noted in an interview that, while the show's color palette is mostly white, the lighting incorporates a bit of blue when the Swan is onstage.

Texture is another important way lighting designers can directly impact the visuals in a scene. By using gobos with patterns on them, lighting designers can transform the look of a scene. Even in productions where sets are minimal, the right lighting pattern can create the impression that the performers are in a jungle, in the city, outside on a starry night or in a church with a stained glass window.

Dividing the Stage

At this point, you may be wondering how lighting designers plan the lighting for a stage production. This is an involved process that starts with reading the script and extends all the way to the live performance. After familiarizing themselves with the production - in terms of the characters, plot and the set that will be onstage - a lighting designer can begin to develop a plan.

This plan will start with dividing the stage into areas that require independent lighting control. For productions that use the whole stage for most scenes, the lighting designer will designate general segments that are evenly divided across the stage. The simplest example would be a center segment with a side segment on stage left and stage right.

For productions with more segmented sets and scenes that take place at different parts of the stage, there will be more definitive, natural area designations for the lighting designer to start with. For instance, there may be a spot on the stage where a narrator appears periodically to speak or where a soloist will stand to perform during an orchestra concert. You would want this spot to be its own area.

The way a designer designates areas will entirely depend on the production and the set, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Each new production a lighting designer works on must start from the ground up.

After the designer divides the stage by area, they will think about each area in terms of color. Do certain areas need to have their own controllable variations in color? In some cases, you may be able to group adjacent segments on the stage. Or you may need each segment to have its own color controls.

In the early stages of their design, lighting professionals tend to think generally about color in terms of warm, cool and neutral lighting. They can also begin to think more specifically about individual colors if they know their colors will differ decidedly from area to area on the stage.

Hanging Light Fixtures

Installing light fixtures is a task best left to a trusted professional who has the necessary equipment and expertise in how to hang stage lights. The most important thing to prioritize is safety. Professional lighting installers will typically attach lanterns to a steel pipe or truss using lighting clamps. As installers connect the lights to the pipe or truss, they will also use a safety cable, which wraps around both the truss and the yoke or handle of the fixture, to secure it further.

All the cabling for lighting should be run overhead whenever possible. Some pipes, called internally-wired bars (IWBs), are equipped with sockets so you can power your lights in a simpler fashion. When cable needs to run across the floor, it's best to create a recessed track for the cable so it isn't a tripping hazard or an obstacle for moving sets.

The positioning of lights depends on the way the designer has segmented the stage and the stage lighting angles they want to achieve. There will likely be several groupings of lights surrounding the stage. Note that some lights, like a followspot, aren't hung at all. They are freestanding and may be positioned in a variety of points within the theater or arena.

How to Work With a Lighting Designer

As an experienced lighting designer and professor of lighting design points out, there is no exact formula for the lighting design process or who collaborates on a production because each production is unique. Lighting designers are the experts when it comes to lighting up a stage, but directors or others working on a production can assist the lighting designer so they can do their absolute best. Follow these tips when working with a stage lighting designer:

Start early: Start communicating with your lighting designer early in the process. This means sharing a script, a video of the show or whatever materials you can to help them understand the content of the production. Lighting design takes time, so don't wait until you're in the late stages of rehearsals to begin working with a lighting designer.

Communicate your goals and preferences: If the writer, choreographer, director or composer knows there are certain artistic goals they want to achieve with the lighting, communicate these goals. These could be overarching goals for the lighting, or they could be specific. For example, you may discuss a color shift that should happen during a scene. Ensure that if you have certain things you're looking for in the lighting, you let your designer know so they can take these preferences into account.

Give them artistic freedom: While you do want to offer your own goals for consideration, it's important to give your lighting designer enough leeway to truly design the lighting for the show. Professional lighting designers are likely to have creative insights and technical expertise you don't have, and they can leverage this specialized knowledge to create something extraordinary.

Custom Stage Lighting Design From Illuminated Integration

The right lighting design can transform a good production into a memorable performance. Through the right angles, intensity levels, colors and textures, light can enhance a play, concert, musical, dance or worship service. Illuminated Integration is a design-build audio, video and lighting (AVL) firm that can help you create a stage lighting setup from the ground up or take your current setup to the next level.

We'll meet with your team for an in-depth consultation where we discuss your goals and parameters for a lighting design project and learn more about your venue. We can then create an original lighting design that is customized for your stage and your goals. We'll even install the system and provide ongoing support, making our services turnkey. Contact Illuminated Integration for more information on our custom AVL designs today.

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Stage Lighting 101 Guide - Everything You Need to Know

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Stage lighting is an art form. It's used to illuminate a performance venue and make an impact on an event, giving visual direction and shaping the environment. There's a lot to learn about stage lighting. In this post, we'll cover some of the foundations of stage lighting that are helpful for anyone in the live performance space to understand.

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