LIGHTING UNVEILED - a lighting guide book by Ales Bravnicar
As every
journey starts with a single step, so does the philosophy of lighting. To work
with many lights one must first to know how to master a single one. One light
can do miracles if you know how to use it correctly. I started shooting
photographs when my father, back in the day a hobby photographer himself, entrusted me his most
prized possession – a 1938 chrome Leica IIIc. As my hunger for mastering and
taming the light grew, so did the amount of lights I used in my work. I always wanted to tell stories with photos.
Photos must speak. Sometimes they whisper, sometimes they scream, but they must
always touch the viewer. Before I knew it I was creating stories while shooting
fashion, glamour and nudes and loved every second of it.
I recall Françoise Bernard, the former senior editor of French Elle,
asking me to come to Paris after our collaboration on shooting the fashion
editorial for the first issue of Elle Slovenia. I decided not to grab that
opportunity. It was a chance of a lifetime, but I had other plans. I was soon
contributing to all the greatest men’s magazines the likes of Maxim and FHM,
but it was the editors of Playboy that hired me for the first job I really felt
passionate about – shooting nudes for a living. For the past 12 years of
contributing for Playboy my pictorials
have been published in almost all international editions and the assignments
have taken me to more than 80 countries around the globe.
Painting
with light has always been a passion of mine, be it in the studio or in the
field. I learned the immaculate ability to master any lighting scenario and
create artful images out of what sometimes seemed to be an impossible situation
without compromise. Since
2010 I expanded my philosophy further – I now firmly believe sharing is power
and have decided to reveal my lighting secrets to the world, hoping to inspire
everybody to become a better photographer.
The book you have before you is not your
every day educational instruction booklet. It is a passionate account of love
for beautiful pictures, great poses and before all, masterfully skilled
lighting techniques. For those of you who are on the lookout for a well-written,
down-to-earth lighting book, compiled by a professional photographer skilled in
dealing with light and shadow, look no further! With years of expertise in the
most varied of lighting situations, from outdoors to the complex studio sets,
this book is a veritable treasure trove of information from the first-hand
account of a photographer who has been shooting fashion and glamour for many
leading magazines with franchises all around the globe.
In the book you will find 15 different
lighting scenarios. You can explore the detailed lighting diagrams, follow
step-by-step instructions or create your own amazing images by learning all the
rules and intentionally tweaking or breaking them. It is all about you – the book
will help reaching out of your comfort zone and have you experiment in ways you
never did before. You will gain professional lighting skills and as your
confidence grows, your lighting thechniques will improve. There are many
battlefields in the tough world of photography business. If you are one step
ahead of your competition, you have already won.
