Black and White Photography Blog, Vol. I

In the old days - it was a great challenge to shoot by the light of a single candle.

The Kubrick film Barry Lyndon was fascinating to a lot of us would-be cinematographers because several scenes were filmed by the light of one or two actual candles.  As I saw this shot - I thought that the new measurement should be by the light of a single cell-phone.  As light is measured in foot-candles, now we can have the phone-foot (the amount of light a cell phone gives off at one foot).

Of course in the early days - everything dealing with candles was faked.  In the scary movie where the girl walks up the stairs carrying a candle - a guy on the set would be following her with some sort of inky spot (as they were called).  This was usually a problem because when it was done poorly (see the Hammer films) - the light would also cast a shadow against the wall behind her.

As I say - only lighting fanatics were looking at this fakery.  If I ever had the time it would be fun to find the brightest cell phone and use that for doing a series of portraits - the cell phone as the key light!  I wonder if anyone in film has done that yet.