Any fool with a camera knows that you need LIGHT to take any kind of decent photograph. I've always been a fan of natural light but I'm always looking for any info on using artificial light to enhance my images. I've got strobes and softboxes etc etc.... I prefer to leave them at home if at all possible but I like to be versatile, expand my knowledge. Occasionally I'll come across an article that offers some 'helpful tips' in this area. Now to ME the term 'helpful tips' implies simplicity but any photographer out there will tell you that learning about lighting is the single most complicated aspect of this craft. So, today I ran across an article on a blog that was simply titled "Portraits with Electronic Flash", sounds like it could be helpful... I take portraits with electronic flash! What little tidbits can this article offer to help me improve my images. So I begin with the first paragraph... Light is important... etc etc... Then by the third sentence I run into this doozie...
All light behaves in accordance with the Inverse Square Rule that states that light’s intensity decreases by the square of the distance from the subject or more simply that light gradually falls off if the light source is far from the subject and rapidly if the light source is close to the subject.
You don’t have to be Stephen Hawking to figure out that this can have an impact on the quality of light too.
HUH??!! Now my brain is checked out... and who is Stephen Hawking? I may not have to BE him to understand the impact of light but who do I have to be to understand what on earth you just said dude? I'm a BIG fan of plain english. The second you start using math terminology by brain goes into the twilight zone... WARNING WARNING!
