Catch light
lighting source to create reflection in eyes
Catch light or catchlight is a light source that causes a specular highlight in a subject's eye in an image; the term may also refer to the highlight itself. The catch light is either an artifact for a lighting method, or purposely engineered to add a glint or spark to a subject's eye during photography. The technique is effective in both still and motion picture photography; helping to draw attention towards the subject's eyes, which may otherwise get lost among other elements in the scene.
History
The lighting instrument was invented by cinematographer Lucien Ballard during the filming of The Lodger, starring Ballard's wife Merle Oberon. Ballard wanted to lessen the visibility of Oberon's facial scars following a car accident in 1937, successfully done through make up and good lighting; attaching a small light mount on the side of a camera.
Description
The Obie light is a small, compact, three bulb light apparatus whose source emits a broad, continuously adjustable pattern within a two-and-a-half stop range. The bulbs come in three basic settings ranging from low to high which can be finely adjusted within each level by disturbing the bulbs and its compound reflector. As a focused light source, it is usually fairly dim and white in color, as to not affect and overpower any other part of the scene or face. Many other lighting methods, however, are known for the distinctive catch light they produce. Among those methods are: a ring flash, which produces several highlights in a ring, and large softboxes, which produce large, square highlights.
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This entry incorporates text from “Catch light” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.