The cold weather has arrived here in North Florida—which means my campervan and I will not be gallivanting across the state quite as much. Instead, I’ll be migrating indoors like a sensible bird: more time in the studio, more time processing film, and far more time hovering over pots of homemade soup, chili, and cornbread. (If you smell something delicious, that’s probably my kitchen. Pull up a chair and join me as we ease into our exploration of lighting.)
Talking about lighting can feel abstract—very abstract. Over the years in the classroom, I learned that even hands-on demos can confuse people, and I finally understood why: you cannot shape light until you actually learn to see it. And most of us aren’t born seeing light in that deliberate way. So my approach here is practical. Very practical. “Boots-on-the-ground” practical. It may sound basic, but trust me—the basics are where the magic starts, and more photographers benefit from simplicity than from smoke and mirrors.
As for lighting textbooks, the one I used in my classes was Light Science & Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting. Should you buy it? Only if you want to wade deep into the technical pool. It’s not required for the practical, real-world techniques I’ll be teaching—but if you want a gold-standard lighting book, this is the one I handed my students.
Why the Studio? Why the Onion?
I’ll be using the studio to create the visuals for this Lighting 101 series. Why? Because that’s where light behaves. Outdoors, you can certainly do lighting magic, but after decades as an on-location commercial photographer, I learned one truth:
when you’re under the sun, the sun is in charge.
I may have done my share of fancy tricks—dragging the shutter with leaf lenses and fiesty speedlights, or firing strobes at just the right moment, but at the end of the day, the sun always held veto power.
The onion image for this intro came from a moment of culinary interruption. I was about to make chili when I stopped myself and thought: photograph the onion first — it’s beautiful. So I set it on a white block and kept the setup simple. Ordinary object, honest light.
I could have staged a grand still life with peppers and carrots and the whole produce aisle, but simplicity forces clarity. And if you look closely at the three frames—shot minutes apart—you’ll see the light changes in each one. Some shifts are subtle, but they matter. Nothing in the scene moved. Post-processing was essentially zero aside from dust spotting.
The difference you see is purely light.
Before we go deeper, here’s a quick note about the studio setup you’ll see throughout this series: every subject requires its own lighting. The background is a subject. The props are subjects. And if you’re photographing a person, they are the subject — but so is the background behind them.
I’m not talking about background color (though lighting can manipulate color, texture, tone… and we’ll get to that later). I’m talking about giving the background the respect it deserves as part of the composition.
We will learn to see in f-stops and shades—ratios, relationships, cause and effect—and much more. This time of year is busy for me. My graphics business always heats up, and my darkroom space is expanding. Shelves are being built, rooms rearranged, and I’m selling gear I no longer use. (Books gone, copy stand gone, more darkroom items queued up—sticking with the AGO processor makes things easier.)
So between bowls of chili, new shelves going up, and losing yet another battle with my gear closet, I’ll be here shaping this Lighting 101 series all winter. Grab your coffee, keep an open mind, and let’s start seeing light for what it really is: the most powerful tool you already have.
One Onion, Two Lights + Creative Craft
