Module 4: Lighting

Light is the foundation of every photograph, and understanding how it behaves is essential for confident and purposeful image-making. This module takes you deep into the nature of light, its intensity, colour, contrast, direction, and hardness or softness. It explains how these characteristics influence mood, clarity, and visual impact.

You’ll explore how light interacts with different surfaces through specular and diffuse reflection, the angle of incidence, gaining the technical insight needed to predict and control results. From the richness of natural light—sunlight, blue hour, magic hour, moonlight, aurora, and other atmospheric phenomena—to the reliability and versatility of artificial sources such as studio flash, continuous lighting, tungsten, fluorescent, and LED systems, the module builds a broad understanding of both available and controlled light.

Alongside this, you’ll learn essential tools and techniques, including light shaping, lighting ratios, balancing flash with ambient light, and utilising scrims, reflectors, and any available resources. By combining theory with practical application and safe equipment use, this module empowers you to recognise, manipulate, and craft light in any shooting environment.

Why This Module Matters

Light is the most important element in photography. In Greek, "photography" means "drawing with light," derived from phōs (φῶς) meaning "light" and graphē (γραφή) meaning "drawing" or "writing". In Module 4, you’ll will focus on:

• Examine light properties including intensity, colour, contrast, source positioning and other qualities.
• Investigate natural light in detail, blue hour, magic hour, noon, lighting at night and much more.
• Understand artificial light, continuous, flash, fluorescent, light shapers and how to combine ambient with artificial light effectively.

What You’ll Learn

• Light Properties
  Understand the various sources of light and their impact on image creation.
• Natural Light Attributes
  Investigate different times of the day, varying temperatures, and compare hard and soft light.
• Artificial Lighting
  Explore lighting equipment in detail, including light shapers and the main options available.
• Combine Artificial & Ambient Light
  Build your skills and combine different light sources to achieve well-exposed images.

What You’ll Do

• Equipment, Model Release & BTS
  List your equipment, practice model releases and submit BTS images.
• Natural Light Practice
  Complete a natural light photography essay following a specific job-like brief.
• Fill Light Challenge
  Create an attractive portrait series applying fill flash on an ambient-lit subject.
• Flash Indoors & Outdoors
  Follow a detailed job-like brief and practice using flash as the main light source.

Module Outcomes

By completing Module 4, you will:

• Gain understanding about natural light properties and attributes at different times of the day.
• Understand how to effectively combine ambient with artificial light in different scenarios.
• Build your equipment knowledge, including continuous light, flash, light shapers and more.
• Practice acquired knowledge through job-like projects with detailed briefs.

Guidance Every Step of the Way

Throughout the course, you’ll be guided by our expert photography tutors. They are accomplished professionals with years of industry experience, as well as dedicated mentors who are passionate about sharing their knowledge. Whether you need feedback on your submitted images, clarification on a concept, or encouragement to push your creative ideas further, your tutor and our support team will be there to support you every step of the way. Our goal is to help you build confidence, develop your own photography style, and ensure you feel inspired and equipped to succeed in the world of photography.