How to Use Refracted Light to Create Amazing Photos

What is Refracted Light?

Refracted light is light that has been refracted through the lens of a camera, making objects look bigger. This is known as foreshortening.

Answer: Refracted light is the process of bending the path of light when it passes through transparent or semi-transparent objects. For example, you will see light bending when you pass through glass or water. In photography, this results in objects looking larger than they really are. This is called foreshortening. Foreshortening is most noticeable when the subject is close to the camera. The further away an object is from the camera the less it will look distorted.

If you are shooting something that is near you and you have a limited amount of space to move around, you need to think carefully about where you are going to position your subjects. Avoid shooting at the edges of your viewfinder frame because the viewfinder will distort the image.

Tips for using Refracted Lighting

A few years ago I went to a workshop where we learnt how to use light to make our photographs more interesting and dramatic. I didn’t realise then that I had been using these techniques throughout my photography career. This is a post about the effects of refraction and reflection of light as seen through glass and water, and the technique I used to achieve this effect in a couple of my pictures.

A picture is worth a thousand words so here are a couple of images to explain what I mean. In the first one, we can see the sun coming in from the top left, hitting the roof and spilling across the window pane, creating interesting shadows and highlighting the flowers. However, because there is so much light, it appears too bright and white, which would be an unnatural looking image.

Reflection: By putting a thin piece of white card behind the flowers, we can make them look less bright. This works because the reflected light is absorbed by the card, leaving just a little bit to appear in the photograph. It helps to tilt the camera so that the light is more directed at the wall, making sure there is no glare on the surface of the water. The light will come from the same direction as the window pane and the refraction will be visible in the reflection.

Refraction: To achieve this type of light, we need to put something between the object and the light source. A sheet of black card will help. We can tilt the camera again to get more refraction in the reflection.

Refracted light and reflections can be used in almost any type of photography to create a beautiful image. I will give examples of the most common types of photography in the following posts. Please let me know what you think.