What is Chiaroscuro Lighting

Chiaroscuro is a lighting technique defined by strong contrasts between light and shadow. The term comes from the Italian words chiaro (light) and scuro (dark). It originated in Renaissance and Baroque painting, used by artists like Caravaggio and Rembrandt to create depth, drama, and emotional weight. In photography, chiaroscuro uses directional, often single-source lighting to sculpt the subject and create a three-dimensional sense of form. Chiaroscuro transforms ordinary scenes by pushing light and shadow into tension. Instead of simply illuminating a subject, it shapes them. The result feels atmospheric, intimate, or theatrical depending on how much of the frame is left in darkness. This technique also aligns closely with the themes of accidental Renaissance and solipsism in my project. When an unplanned moment falls into dramatic light and shadow, it resembles classical art even though no one meant it to. Our perception fills in the significance, suggesting that we continually recognise and recreate artistic forms in real life.

Techniques and Practical Approaches

To create chiaroscuro effects, I will use a single side lit key light or natural directional light from windows to form strong contrast. I’ll apply Rembrandt lighting for the distinct triangle of light on the shadowed side of the face and keep backgrounds dark to strengthen the separation between light and shade. By metering for highlights and letting shadows fall off naturally or deepen in post-processing, I can intensify the dramatic contrast that defines chiaroscuro.

This effect reinforces my idea that we fall into the patterns of “theyness”, where people repeat visual forms that feel ancient and familiar. Using chiaroscuro lighting allows me to highlight this loop between ordinary reality and painterly imagery. By using techniques like Rembrandt lighting, strong directional shadows, and minimal background interference, I aim to elevate simple moments into something cinematic, reflective, and quietly symbolic.

Available Lighting for Street Photography

In this part of my project I will be solely working with available light, using street lamps, illuminated windows and passing headlights as my only sources. Instead of relying on controlled studio setups and or controlled artificial lighting, I want to explore how the natural lighting conditions of urban spaces can create atmosphere and mood on their own. Street lighting is often uneven, harsh or unpredictable, yet these qualities can produce powerful shadows and dramatic contrasts that transform ordinary scenes into something more expressive. By responding to the light already present rather than shaping it artificially, I hope to produce images that feel more authentic and emotionally charged. Ultimately, working with available street light allows me to build mood through observation and timing, deepening my connection to the environments I photograph and expanding my ability to create moody, atmospheric images.

Looking at Rut Blees Luxemburg

Looking at Luxembourg’s photographs will help me develop my approach to available street lighting because his work focuses on how cities transform after dark. He pays close attention to how street lamps, reflections and pockets of shadow create atmosphere, which directly relates to my aim of using existing urban light to shape mood. His images show how night can simplify a scene, isolate subjects and turn ordinary spaces into something more dramatic.

Connecting this to Brassaï strengthens my understanding of night photography. Both photographers use available light to reveal the character of a city, but they do it in different ways. Brassaï’s work often feels softer and more intimate, with fog, reflections and gentle glows shaping Paris into a mysterious, romantic space. Luxembourg’s work is more modern and sometimes harsher, using bold contrasts and brighter artificial lights to highlight the energy and tension of contemporary urban life. Studying both helps me see how different types of street lighting can change the emotional tone of an image and gives me a wider visual vocabulary to draw from in my own work.

Rut Blees Luxemburg’s photographic work explores the public spaces of cities, where the ambitions and unexpected sensual elaborations of the ‘modern project’ are revealed. In so doing she brings to light the
overlooked, the dismissed and the unforeseen and creates uncanny and vertiginous compositions whose constituent parts suggest different ways of experiencing our shared common spaces.

from the introduction to the book Commonsensual

Takeaway Point

rewdson, Ori Gersht, Bill Henson, Chrystel Lebas and Liang Yue.

Response to Rut Blees Luxemburg

For your next shoot, I’d like you to take inspiration from Rut Blees Luxemburg, whose nighttime photographs transform ordinary city spaces into something poetic and mysterious. She often works with long exposures, reflections, and artificial light to reveal beauty in places that usually go unnoticed.

Key ideas to explore:
– Beauty and melancholy in everyday urban scenes
– The stillness and solitude of the city at night
– Reflections in wet streets, windows, or puddles
– Contrasts between warm and cool light sources

Compositional Tips
– Shoot from low or tilted angles to give a cinematic, distorted effect.
– Use reflections creatively — in puddles, glass, or metal.
– Look for patterns and geometry (lines, grids, repeating structures).
– Focus on human traces rather than people — such as empty chairs, litter, signage, or light trails.

Reflection Questions
Think about these when reviewing your images:
How did the night setting change the way you saw the space?
What role does light play in shaping the atmosphere of each shot?
How do your images balance beauty and realism?
Which photographs feel most like “you” — and why?

For this project, I will take photos at bus stations instead of streets to focus on the quiet, structured spaces where people repeat everyday actions. I want to show how ordinary behaviours, like checking a phone or holding an umbrella, can feel isolated even when people are physically close. Using a tripod will let me keep the camera in a fixed position and combine multiple shots to show people appearing more than once in the same frame.

I will shoot in the evening or at blue hour when artificial lights create reflections and contrast. I will avoid flash and use long exposures to capture subtle light and movement. Reflections in puddles or windows, repeating patterns in architecture, and small human details like bags or umbrellas will help make the images feel cinematic and layered. Shooting from low or slightly tilted angles will add perspective and depth.

This approach lets me explore solipsism and isolation in everyday spaces while creating visually interesting, layered compositions inspired by photographers like Rut Blees Luxemburg.

Artificial Light

For this shoot, I focused on exploring how artificial light can transform urban spaces. Lighting is a key element in creating mood and guiding the viewer’s attention. Studying the work of Jim Davidson helped me understand how to use controlled light to highlight subjects and create contrast in otherwise ordinary environments. His approach to balancing light and shadow influenced the way I framed my compositions and thought about how people interact with illuminated spaces.

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Bruce Davidson

Bruce Davidson is a renowned American photographer, known for his humanist and documentary work that often focuses on marginalised communities and social issues. A member of the Magnum Photos agency since 1958, he is renowned for projects such as “Brooklyn Gang,” “Freedom Riders,” and “East 100th Street,” where he immersed himself in his subjects’ lives for extended periods to create deeply intimate photo essays. Bruce Davidson takes photos in a similar style to the photographers Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Martha Cooper.

I want to look at Davidson’s Subway series because it shows how available light can create cinematic, chiaroscuro-style street photographs. He uses the harsh, directional lighting of stations and train carriages to create strong contrasts between light and shadow, making faces and gestures stand out against dark surroundings. The confined space intensifies this effect and gives the images a dramatic, film-like quality. Studying his work will help me understand how to use pockets of natural light to create depth and mood and apply chiaroscuro techniques in real urban settings.

Through analysing Bruce Davidson’s Subway, I have come to understand photography as an intersubjective act rather than a one-sided observation. Davidson’s immersive presence and empathetic use of colour transform moments of urban anonymity into shared human encounters. His photographs demonstrate that meaning arises not in isolation, but in the tension and recognition between photographer and subject. This awareness informs my own project, guiding me to prioritise relational depth, emotional reciprocity, and not making the people look so monotonous and samey, so it still ties into theyness and solipsism.

Street Flash Photography Inspired by Davidson

For this project, I went to Canterbury to experiment with street flash photography, inspired by Bruce Davidson’s work. I carried my flash gun around and photographed people walking past or security guards in public spaces. The aim was to use the flash to isolate my subjects from the environment, creating a dramatic contrast between the illuminated figures and the darker background. This technique allowed me to capture fleeting moments and highlight human presence in urban settings while emphasising mood and atmosphere, similar to the way Davidson manipulates light to reveal hidden details in the city at night.

What went well during this shoot was how the flash effectively isolated my subjects from the background, giving each person a strong presence in the frame. The sudden burst of light emphasised gestures, clothing, and facial expressions, making the images feel immediate and cinematic. Using the flash also helped create a sense of tension and focus in busy public spaces, drawing attention to individual actions that might otherwise have been lost in the crowd.

This approach links directly to my project because it continues my exploration of solipsism and multiplicity. By highlighting people in isolation, even in shared urban environments, I am visually representing how individuals inhabit private realities within the same space. The flash allows me to emphasise fleeting moments of interaction and repetition, reinforcing the themes of observation, fragmentation, and the unnoticed patterns of human behaviour that are central to my work.

Looking at the work of Daidō Moriyama

Daidō Moriyama’s photography can help me develop a more stylised aesthetic because he pushes contrast, grain and abstraction to the edge of legibility. His images often feel chaotic, fragmented and gritty, showing how a photograph doesn’t need to be technically perfect to be powerful. Studying his work encourages me to focus less on precision and more on atmosphere, instinct and emotional impact. He embraces harsh flash, deep shadows and expressive textures, proving that style can come from leaning into imperfection and using light in a raw, direct way.

Connection to Davidson

His work connects to Bruce Davidson and my previous shoot through the way all three use selective lighting and deep shadow to build atmosphere. Like Davidson’s subway images, Moriyama isolates subjects within pockets of light while letting the darkness around them dominate the frame. My shoot followed a similar direction by exploring strong tonal contrast and dramatic lighting, so Moriyama’s approach helps me see how far this aesthetic can be pushed and how darkness itself can become a defining stylistic element.

Moriyama’s digital manipulation also plays an important part in this. Even though his career began with film, he later used digital tools to exaggerate contrast, intensify shadows and push grain far beyond what the camera captures. He reprocesses images to heighten their rough, unstable quality, turning everyday scenes into abstract, energetic impressions of city life. This shows me how editing can be used creatively to enhance mood rather than simply correct a photograph.

My Response to Moriyama

Some context to these photographs – where, why how + visual analysis

What went well in my shoots inspired by Moriyama was how the strong contrast and selective lighting made the two people playing by the sea stand out against the darker, more abstract background. The harsh light and shadows emphasised movement and energy, giving the image a sense of immediacy and rawness. This approach helped me create a stylised, cinematic atmosphere similar to Moriyama’s gritty, fragmented cityscapes, even though my environment was natural rather than urban. The rough textures of the sand, water, and sky added visual interest and contributed to the feeling of chaos and unpredictability that Moriyama often achieves in his work.

In terms of areas to improve, some parts of the image became slightly underexposed, causing details in the background to disappear completely. I could experiment with balancing the contrast more carefully or using subtle fill light to retain a sense of depth while keeping the dramatic effect.

This links directly to my project because it continues my exploration of solipsism and multiplicity through visual tension. By isolating the figures and emphasising the contrast between them and their environment, I reinforce the idea of individuals occupying their own moments of reality within a shared space. Like Moriyama and Davidson, I am using light and shadow to highlight emotional and perceptual differences, turning ordinary scenes into a more expressive and stylised reflection of human behaviour.

Saul Leiter and Alex Webb

You need to include their photographs

Saul Leiter

Saul Leiter was a pioneering figure in early colour photography, known for his quiet, poetic street scenes. Working mostly in New York, he used reflections, windows, snow, rain, and layered glass to create painterly compositions that feel almost abstract, especially in his project on the street, which is my main inspiration for the work that he has created. Leiter often photographed from inside cafés, behind steamed-up windows, or through reflections that partially obscure the scene. This allowed him to isolate people who were unaware of the camera, turning them into small, delicate shapes inside a much larger frame. His use of compressed viewpoints makes the city feel soft and intimate, as if we are watching unguarded moments from a distance. Leiter’s subjects rarely “perform” for the camera; instead, they drift through the frame like characters in a quiet film.

Alex Webb

Alex Webb, a member of Magnum Photos, is known for his vibrant, high-contrast colour work often taken in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the US. His photographs are dense, multi-layered, and full of dramatic geometry. Webb uses strong sunlight, deep shadows, doorways, windows, and architectural edges to separate people within the same scene. Like Leiter, he often photographs from positions where subjects are unaware they’re being watched, but the results are more dynamic and tense. Webb’s colour palette is saturated and energetic, and he uses complex viewpoints to create scenes where several isolated moments occur at once, each element arranged by light and shadow i will try and do this in downtown la where the large building in the background will create depth in the image and frame the subjects in a juxtaposing way i will also take photos of poeple through holes in walls and through intresting veiwpoints.

Comparison

Although their moods differ, both Saul Leiter and Alex Webb rely on strategic viewpoints to isolate subjects who do not realise they are being photographed. Leiter uses soft barriers, windows, reflections, and fogged glass to create distance and a sense of quiet observation. Webb uses hard edges, door frames, sunlight, and deep shadows to carve the frame into separate zones that isolate individuals even within a busy street scene. Leiter’s work feels subtle and painterly, while Webb’s feels intense and cinematic, yet both use geometry, distance, and vantage point to transform everyday moments into carefully constructed visual narratives.

Response to Webb and Leitre – Downtown LA

For my Downtown LA shoot, I plan to explore similar ideas to those of Saul Leiter and Alex Webb by focusing on layering, geometry, and strategic viewpoints to isolate people within a larger urban environment. I will use large buildings in the background to create depth and frame my subjects, drawing attention to them while maintaining a sense of the surrounding city. I also plan to experiment with photographing people through holes in walls, windows, or other interesting perspectives to partially obscure them, creating a quiet tension and transforming ordinary scenes into visual narratives.

This approach is inspired by Leiter’s subtle, painterly use of reflections and soft barriers, which create a sense of intimate observation, and by Webb’s dynamic, high-contrast framing, which isolates multiple actions within a single scene. By combining these influences, I aim to capture images that feel cinematic yet natural, where each subject occupies a private moment of reality within the larger urban space. This will allow me to continue exploring my project’s themes of solipsism, multiplicity, and the way individuals exist alongside one another without truly interacting.

Technically, I will focus on careful positioning, selecting vantage points that allow me to isolate subjects naturally while maintaining compositional interest. I will experiment with light, shadow, and reflections to enhance depth and mood, capturing the energy of the city without disrupting the quiet, observational feeling inspired by Leiter and Webb.

Natural Framing

Framing people in gaps between buildings worked well, giving a clear sense of scale and emphasising individuals within the urban environment. One photo shows a man in the middle of the street with a large building behind him, and another shows a woman lost among blocky, metal structures.

These images link directly to my project themes of solipsism and multiplicity, highlighting people existing in their own private worlds within impersonal city spaces.

Some improvements could include separating subjects more clearly from busy backgrounds and softening harsh shadows from direct sunlight. Shooting at different times of day or through reflections and gaps, inspired by Saul Leiter and Alex Webb, could enhance the cinematic feel and strengthen the connection to my project’s exploration of isolated individuals in urban spaces.