Holy crap. It’s 2023 and I’ve just stumbled upon this tutorial. Learned SO much. Thank you.

This got me thinking how bright the sun actually is... Pretty crazy!

One of the most informative and helpful videos that I've ever seen on lighting. Thanks so much for putting this together.

Your theory and practical exercise make this video one of the best one I have seen on this subject. THANK YOU

They say the most intelligent people are those who can take complex subjects and make them understandable to the layman! Thank you so much, you just did what SO MANY of those on KZfaq cannot do, you made this entire subject simple to understand and for that you sir are the best thing I’ve seen on KZfaq Barr NONE!!!!! 👍🏽🙏🏽⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In spite of the criticisms and potential technical fallacies, I found this demo to be very practical and helpful for just a general understanding of creating some basic effects with a light. Just now dipping my toes into the world of strobe photography and can't wait to experiment.

Thank you for this explanation and your wonderful examples and keeping it simple!

What Peter presents here is Hurley's Inverse Inverse Square Law. Hurley's visuals are broken by metering between each shot and shooting in a room that has reflective (diffuse) surfaces. To measure out the math of the Inverse Square Law and show it to us viewers visually, he should leave the settings on his camera set for proper exposure of the first shot and be shooting with a single source of light in a blacked out room . Moving the light back farther then causes an obvious light reduction (the inverse square law in question) and a sharpening of the subject's shadows. The farther the light source is from the subject, the more light your source has to produce to expose the subject properly. That light reduction effect is governed by the Inverse square law. The sun is really bright, and really far away, but despite Hurley's Inverse Inverse math the sun produces really sharp shadows. The shadows in question become sharper the farther the light source is from the subject matter and the closer the subject is to the shadowed surface. That's why your feet have sharper shadows than your head on a sunny day. Your head is closer to the light source and farther from the surface. Your feet are farther away from the light source and closer to the surface. The background wall "color trick" works, but you have to move your subject in close proximity to the light source and away from the wall to create diffuse shadows. If you move your light source away from the wall without moving the subject, your subject will cast harsher shadows even when being properly exposed. You can try this with a flashlight or your cell phone light right now. Shine your light on your hand while hovering it above your desk. The farther you hold your light from your hovering hand, the sharper the shadow on the desk becomes. If you bring your light toward your hovering hand, you'll see the shadows blur along their edges. This blurring shadow effect is opposite of what Hurley claims in the video. This is a really long comment. Thanks for reading it. This shadow softening falloff concept shouldn't have been mentioned in a video about the inverse square law, but I get the impression Hurley's trying to sensationalize his ideas about photography and he presented a falsity which will be confusing to many future photography hopefuls.

What a brilliant explanation. Thanks so much Fstoppers.

Thank you so much Peter. Greatest possible Information. Never would have thought about it without your help. Thank you for sharing.

The best and short inverse square law course and demonstration ever !!! Thanks so much Peter

Such a great video! I'm in awe of the knowledge and insight I just gained within that 15 minutes! Felt like I experienced an epiphany!

Great knowledge here, thanks for sharing some laws of light.

Struggled with this for awhile. Best explanation and now I get it. Thank you.

We had to learn this back in 1978 when I got my 2 year photography cert. in Daytona. Old school stuff works :-)

I achieved that same affect with my flash on camera at weddings looking as if It were done in a studio. People always asked how it was done especially since they saw no back drops. It really made the dress of the bride pop with a black background. This is just to give you an idea of how and where to use this, you need to experiment.

Subbed after seeing this video. Super glad to see someone breaking down photog exp in math vs just "It's just how it works". Thank you so much for this video.

Great, I love it, I never did any studio photography, so I didn't know about this concept, but actually, it helps to understand better the light in landscaping and street photography. Thanks, Really Appreciate.

This is so cool to learn! I am just learning how to shoot with flash, and other day I was in a situation where the light was too strong on the subject. So I reduced the potency of the flash, but If I had watched this class before I would just put the flash one or two squares behind. Thanks!

Extra! Merci pour la vidéo. On en veut plus !

so cool... need to see the full version. BIG THANKS

So good. Big kudos to fstoppers and Peter for showing us the ropes!

Amazing tutorial. 15 min of gem, thank you...

Great video! Appreciate the knowledge!

Been shooting for years now and haven't found a clearer explanation of this, well done. Wish he would've thrown in size of light source relative to subject detail also. Thank you for this!

Awesome. Learned a lot. Thank You Sir

That was very interesting, thanks!

Nice video!! Thank you for the explanation...

Thank you .. excellent information about light and shadow..

Awesome tutorial Peter and model!

Simple and easy to understand. Thanks Peter

Man..that was a really good tutorial !!!!! Thanks !!!

Awesome tutorial, thanks a lot!

Excellent video 👍 thank you so much.

Now, this was amazingly cool... thank you...

Great stuff!!! Thanks!

Very concise! Thank you!

Its amazing tutorial on KZfaq... U hv cleared my concept about the variations of light from distances Love u and thank u dear,,, thumbs up

Just awsome! I loved it

The effect on the models face is highly influenced by the angle of incidence of light rays. In the first shot, light source is so close to the model's face, that it's blocked from reaching the ear. It's misleading to think this effect is due to "light fall-off".

This tutorial was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I never realised that distance meant so much. I thought it was all about angle. Ive been working in a tight space so I never thought that would make a difference.

You guys are amazing!

Wow 😯, that was sooo useful!!! Thank you

Super video! And thanks for sharing a free 15 minutes! This is a very helpful video! )))

Very interessting! Thank you!

this is amazing, thanks so much for sharing

So helpful! Thank you

So so nicely explained. Thank you

Thanks, I will definitely be using this.

Many thanks Peter Confess never had a clue about the fall off concept Finally also get the dark background bit That also means moonlight and sunlight have zero fall off for my photography purposes ...

Huge. Don’t have the math gene but thank you Peter Hurley for simplifying this concept. Im a visual learner so this was excellent for me!

Awesome teacher.Hatsoff

Thanks for the valuable info

Super informative...definite sub keep it up guys

That's a good concrete way to explain it!

Very cool explanation!

AWESOME VIDEO!!!

One of the best explanations I’ve seen, thanks! Notice the shadow cast from your arm while writing? Hard shadow to low contrast ~you can make another video on that.

Invaluable. Thanks.

Best explanation I have seen!

Great video and great Subject!

Just too good, brilliant video.

thats one of the greatest vid about lighting

I don't shoot portraits. But, this is extremely good to know because I'm an actor and light myself. I've always had the light source very close. I'm really blown away at the distance being the secret for better illumination, to some degree. I mean there is more too it since the light source will be constant and not a flash. I'll experiment with it. Regardless, this is still just fun to know! :) Thank you for the video!

Peter Hurley is the best!

The invers square law only works on omni directional light. If you focus the beam the falloff effect is reduced. If the light is focused like a moving head beam there is barely any falloff. Same if you use reflectors or parabolic umbrellas, the light is focused and will not have as much falloff. A softbox witch throws the light 180 degrees will have more falloff than a parabolic umbrella or reflector.

Peter is a very good instructor. He mentioned more recently that prior to shooting this video he didn't know what "inverse square law" meant, until Lee and Patrick taught him. (He'd known about the relationship between distance and brightness, of course, just not by that name.)

Sweet Info! Thanks!!!!..

Fascinating!

Very good information..thank you 😊

Thanks Peter!!

Awesome! :) Thank You! :)

Excellent!!!

My mind went boom 🤯. This is going to help me a LOT with photobooth flash lightning.

Great Lesion.

It was helpful!

Hahaha " the whole earth is like .... light up" hahahaha 😂 love it, great video!

Awesome tutorial

awesome tutorial

Very Helpful! info "clicks" visually and mentally Thank you!

Thank you!

Wow, this is awesome.

I'm in the middle of the video and I'm stunned with love and wisdom and I can't wait to share it back. Thank You very much for sharing

This tutorial giving a very good explaination ab inverse square law . Tq

Good job !

Wow thank you so much

Cool,i learned something today

Amazing practice 👍

with all due respect, the first part is technically correct but the second demonstration part has incorrect information, the reason why you see more including the ear is because the light got a chance to disburse more over distance and the angle of incidence of the light changed. if the light was a perfectly cylindrical beam, his ear would not have shown in a perfectly non reflective dark studio. the quality of the light changes, yes, flat vs harsh, true, but not the ear stuff.

Thank you.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that as Peter moves the light source away from the subject, less light is reaching him. Peter then changes his camera settings to allow for more light to enter the camera. Therefore, at some point, he will be allowing ambient light from the studio and windows to enter the exposure (particularly the back of the subject's head) and the ambient light could be mistaken as flatter light from the strobe. Am I over-thinking this?

Tutorial is super bro

Great, thanks

great, thank you

mind explodes! Finally makes sense. 😀

Thanks for the video, amazing explanation, but what I knew before that the the far the light source the harder it will be, which will make hard shadow!! how does this go with the inverse square law?

Love it

wow this is gold

It seems like there are two different things going on - exposure and LIGHT SPREAD

thank you