Chroma: A Photographer’s Guide to Lighting with Color

Learning to work with light is an important milestone in every photographer's career, and the ability to craft light to fit your vision for an image is a skill that cannot be overrated. Most often, that crafting of light is spoken of in terms of the quality and quantity of light. But there is an important, third component of light that heavily influences the final look of the image: the color of light. In Chroma: A Photographer's Guide to Lighting with Color, photographer Nick Fancher helps you elevate your game when it comes to introducing the bold, creative, and intentional use of color into your work.

Whether you're using a high-powered strobe or a small hotshoe flash, Chroma is for you. Nick begins with a discussion of color theory, gels, and white balance, then examines how to determine which colors complement your subject matter (whether that's people or products). He moves on to cover topics such as:

• Balancing, mixing, and overpowering ambient light with artificial light
• Layering colors for unique color combinations
• Mixing hard and soft light to achieve extremely rich color
• Lighting detail and texture
• Modifier options, such as ring flash, snoots, barn doors, softboxes, and filters
• Gobos to control the light
• Post-processing for vibrant, powerful colors
• How (and why) to light with color, even when the end goal is a black and white image

Illustrated throughout with innovative and expressive imagery, Chroma also includes behind-the-scenes photos, lighting diagrams, and Lightroom settings so you can follow along from the initial concept through to the final edit.

Nick Fancher is a Columbus, Ohio-based portrait and commerce photographer. He graduated from The Ohio State University with a BFA in fine art photography in 2005. His clients have included JackThreads, ESPN Magazine, The Ohio State University, CVS, and Getty. He adores good coffee, music, and the film work of Charlie Kaufman. He can be found online at nickfancher.com, @nickfancher (Twitter and Instagram), and nickfancherphoto (Facebook).