Three Tiers of Lighting
Often times when I’m critiquing work or discussing lighting design with others, I bring up a concept of the “Three Tiers of Lighting”. That phrase may not be common, but the underlying concept is nothing new; Lighting design can be executed on one of three levels: Accidental, “Exposural”, or Intentional. Let’s take a look at these in order.
The Three Tiers
Accidental Lighting is typically found in the work of newcomers. It essentially means the lighting in the image was not intentionally designed. This kind of lighting typifies the “snapshot” kind of photography. Images shot under Accidental Lighting are shot without regard to (or even awareness of) light source, light quality, or color temperatures. They are likely to be over- or under-exposed.
A lot of folks might read that previous paragraph and conclude that Accidental Lighting means ambient lighting. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ambient lighting can certainly be designed and modified to suit the needs of the image. Accidental lighting is just those lighting setups that haven’t been intentionally designed. Accidental Lighting can just as easily happen with artificial lighting. In fact, most snapshots use those tiny on-camera flashes. That is both undesigned light (Accidental) and not ambient.
It’s important to note that these images shot under Accidental Lighting are not necessarily bad. There may be very good images that were shot under Accidental Lighting; they simply happened on to favorable conditions. The factor that makes it accidental is that the scene wasn’t intentionally set up to capture good lighting.
The next tier of lighting is what I call Exposural Lighting. This is “get-the-job-done” lighting that has been intentionally designed to give proper exposure, but little else. An image shot under Exposural Lighting will be properly exposed, but the lighting doesn’t contribute to the feel of the image. It’s lighting that would be suitable for reproducing a document.
Again, Exposural Lighting is equally likely to be found in either natural or artificial lighting setups. In fact, the most common blend of the two - outdoor daylight images with fill flash - is a great example of Exposural Lighting. In those images, the lighting was intentionally chosen only to ensure the subjects are properly exposed.
Finally we get to Intentional Lighting. This is lighting that has been designed by the photographer to suit the image’s compositional and emotive needs. Images shot under intentional lighting will likely be properly exposed. Beyond that, though, the lighting was chosen to help tell the story. The lighting design has become a tool for the photographer to tell the story. The photographer using Intentional Lighting is able to give his images a mood. He uses lighting the way he uses his set, subject, and props - to create a feeling of warmth, of starkness, of fear, of happiness, or whatever the point of the image is.
Images shot under Intentional Lighting are not automatically good images, of course. There are plenty of examples - in photographic lighting or composition, in graphic design, in product design, etc - where the design was intentional but still bad. But at least in Intentional Lighting, the photographer created the image to get his intended result.
OK, but so what?!
I mention all of this as a way for you to think about your own work. I can’t look at your image and say whether it was an Accidental Lighting setup or an Intentional Lighting setup, because the main difference between the two is the photographer’s intent, not the end result of the image (”Of course it’s overexposed and lit with the on-camera flash! That’s my artistic vision!”). The only one who can assess the image and put it into these tiers is the photographer himself. If you’re honest with yourself about your work, you’ll put it into the tier where it belongs.
It may seem that I have a bias toward moving up the tiers, and that’s because I do. The most successful photographers (and I’m not speaking solely of the most financially successful ones) are those who can control their lighting to achieve the results they’re after. Does this mean one must use strobes, speedlights, or other artificial lighting to be successful? Absolutely not. In fact, I’d argue that those who can be intentional about their lighting and create Tier 3 images using only ambient lighting are stronger photographers than those who can only do it with artificial lighting, but that’s a discussion for another time.
My challenge to the photographers out there reading this is to push yourself up the tiers. If you’re currently shooting with no regard to lighting (and this includes using Auto-Everything on your camera), push yourself to figure out how to start managing the light for exposure. If you’re currently doing that, your task is to learn how to set up your lighting to achieve a specific mood in your image. If you are currently able to do that, your task is to make sure you can do it in both a natural light and an artificial light setting. And if you’re currently able to do that, you can leave a comment in the notes field below and tell me what the next tier is. 