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I think it depends on the lesbian. If shedding is an issue, you can always find a short haired lesbian, they usually shed less.

The Golden Girls – 2.05: Isn't It Romantic

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This is very helpful. Thank you!

Understanding the Inverse Square Law

(Without Math)

When I was first getting deep into photography, I kept running into lessons about the inverse square law. They would always tell you the effects and the math but they never explained the cause. Why does the light do this?

It's like when the doctor gives you a pill to fix something. You swallow it, wait a bit, and eventually you feel better. But you rarely know what the pill is actually doing.

So when it comes to lighting, you have to decide if you want to be the doctor who understands the why or the patient who just swallows the pill and gets the desired effect.

Every tutorial will say if you double the distance of a light from a subject, the intensity will drop by 1/4. They will give you a formula so you can do exposure calculations.

Sometimes they will refer to somewhat helpful diagrams with clues on what is happening.

But most just teach the easy version.

If you move the light closer, you will get quicker falloff into shadow and the background will be darker.

If you move it farther back, everything will be more evenly lit, but the background will be lighter.

The teacher will shoot some examples and show you something like this.

By the end of this post, I want everyone who reads it to *truly* understand what is happening.

Because if you understand it on that level, it will change how you think about light and photography. It will have the added bonus of explaining magnets and WiFi and even the sound coming out of your speakers.

If I am an effective teacher, this is something you will think about in your everyday life, even if you don't care about photography.

In a previous post, I talked about how light was a bit like a shotgun blast. The closer you are, the more concentrated the pellets. If you are farther away, the shot disperses.

But this wasn't the analogy I wanted to use. It was just the easiest to find visual examples of.

My preferred analogy was spray paint. And I'm hoping with some janky home-made visuals, I can do a better job of explaining the concept.

Let's start by explaining the humble photon. It's the fundamental particle (or wave) of light. Think of them like individual tiny globs of paint in a spray can. A photon is emitted when something loses energy. And unmodified light sources typically shoot out photon globs in all directions.

A point light source is a theoretical concept where a single point in space shoots light evenly in every direction. For our purposes we're just going to imagine a basic light bulb as the point source.

But our eyes and cameras have a limited field of view, so from here on out we are going to think of the light emitting from the bulb as having a cone shape. We are just concerned with what a camera can actually see.

Well, well, well... what does that cone of light look like?

I'm sure we have all used spray paint before. So let's imagine we are spraying a white ball against a gray wall. We spray for 1 second and hold the can at different distances.

In each scenario we are spraying for the same length of time and the exact same number of photon paint globs are emitted from the nozzle.

Let's think about what each scenario would look like from the camera's point of view.

Here is our unpainted ball and wall.

Here is the spray can held at Distance 1.

Note how the red paint is very concentrated and appears bold and saturated.

Distance 2.

Now the same amount of paint is dispersed over a wider area. The bold red spot in the center is more muted. And some of the paint is spilling onto the background.

Distance 3.

Everything appears to have a light red tint. The background and the white ball appear to have similar intensities of red. The coverage is very even. The same number of photon paint globs are being asked to cover a larger area so they are spreading out and diluting the color.

Okay, now let's exchange tiny photon paint globs for real photons.

I'm bringing back my baseball and showing these same 3 distances.

The nice thing about eyeballs and cameras... they can compensate for different light intensities. Our eyes have night vision and cameras have long shutter speeds, large lens apertures, and ISO amplification.

And if we compensate for the dimming caused by the dispersed light...

Photography teachers will tell you that if you move the light farther away, the background will get brighter. In reality, everything is the same level of dim and the camera exposure is brightened.

What if we wanted to spray the same area from far away without losing as much of the red saturation? We could add a super nozzle to our spray can that emits a bunch more photon globs in the same span of time.

This would be like turning up the power of the light. You have to emit a bunch more photons in that same time scale to compensate. Then you don't have to adjust your camera settings when you move the light farther away.

Let's look at a practical example of when you might think about the inverse square law to help solve a problem.

You have two subjects in a scene, and you put the light just out of view of the camera. You might be thinking that a larger light source is softer, so you want it as close as possible.

Unfortunately only one person is lit in the scene. She is getting the concentrated photons before they can disperse.

So if we want both people to have similar lighting, we can move the light farther away. You will have to comprimise a little softness. And you will have to change your camera settings or increase the power of the light.

Note that the intensity of light in the area they are standing in is very similar now.

By using a large light modifier, the photographer was able to move the light back and keep its general softness, but also evenly light both subjects.

And now I need to talk about one aspect of my spray paint analogy that does not work with the inverse square law. And it has to do with the specular highlight on the baseball.

Spray paint does not reflect paint. It just sticks to things. And reflection throws a tiny wrench into my explanation. Because parallel light rays do not obey the inverse square law. When you light something, the most central photons from the subject's perspective are going to be traveling in parallel. They have a direct path from the light to the camera lens or your eyeball.

Now if the reflection material is perfectly matte, the light will disperse and act as the inverse square law suggests. But if the surface is even a little glossy, the most concentrated parallel rays are going to bounce directly into your eye as a bright white spot.

And if you study this diagram a little closer, you might figure out why specular highlights are usually white.

If you look at the specular highlight on the baseball, even though the rest of the image gets dimmer as the light gets farther away, that spot stays bright.

Though the spot seems to disappear at Distance 1. Curious, eh?

It's still there. It's still reflecting directly into your eyeball. But the light around it is so concentrated and bright, the specular highlight blends in.

Which means if you have some nasty highlights on your photo subject, moving your light closer might make them go away. If someone has a shiny forehead, this can equalize the overall exposure and hide the shiny.

This guy has a bright spot on his nose. It is there in both photos.

But his face is so much brighter in the left photo that the spot blends in. It's a bit of a mind bender because the camera exposure is adjusted so the finished photos appear the same amount of bright.

You have to remember if you only move the light farther away and don't increase its power or increase the camera's exposure level, the photos would look more like this.

So if you make the rest of the face as bright as the highlight, it blends in.

Neat!

So, was I successful?

Does the inverse square law make more sense?

This is why WiFi gets weaker at a distance. This is why magnets lose their attraction when you pull them apart. This is why speakers get quieter when you move away from them.

I can't tell you how much knowing the why has affected my thinking about lighting. I see so many video and photo people talking about lighting setups who are just following memorized placements.

"Put a light above the subject at a 45 degree angle to get Rembrandt lighting."

But the second they encounter light doing something unexpected, things fall apart. They resort to trial and error and brute force the solution.

Knowing how the pill works can prevent that frustrating process.

I no longer care about the math. I can just visualize the cone of influence and predict what will happen. Understanding the behavior of light and not just the end effects has made everything more intuitive. I just wish it hadn't taken me so long to understand this. But, hopefully, this post has shortened that journey for you.

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buds, this is the wrong article to put under an email gate.

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I saw this and I thought Tumblr might enjoy it

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I usually respond with "I know. That's the problem."

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sending illi & friends to the Big Dance…!!!

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On April 16th 2025 the US federal government has proposed to change the interpretation of the endangered species act so that it no longer protects habitat.

This is open for public comment until the end of May 19th. Please comment and make your voice heard.

Wildlife need their habitat. If the ESA redefines harm so that habitat is no longer protected, the implications for wildlife would be catastrophic.

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i dont consider myself a 'fashion guru' by any means but one thing i will say is guys you dont need to know the specific brand an item you like is - you need to know what the item is called. very rarely does a brand matter, but knowing that pair of pants is called 'cargo' vs 'boot cut' or the names of dress styles is going to help you find clothes you like WAAAYYYY faster than brand shopping

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reminders for today:

if you or someone you know might need it in the next few years, purchase plan b. the shelf life of plan b is 4 years, and we might not be able to access it as easily as we can now in the days ahead.

if you are larger/plus size: go online and purchase ella instead of plan b. plan b is less effective if you aren’t under 160 pounds.

if you can, purchase books that project 2025 is looking to ban.

mass deportations are starting. if you see ice vehicles or agents, yell ice raid and la migra as loud as you can.

if someone asks who you voted for, keep your mouth shut. they’re fishing for traitors.

if anyone, anyone at all asks about your neighbors or their legal status in the us, you know nothing. don’t be the reason that their family is separated.

if anyone asks about your religion or lack thereof, keep it vague. this administration will look for any excuse to persecute you.

your friends are trans or queer? for the next four years they’re not. don’t expose anyone’s status as a trans or queer person to anyone else, even if you think you can trust them.

did someone you know get an abortion? no, they didn’t. they were never pregnant.

in short, don’t be a snitch, and keep to yourself these next four years. we’ll make it through this even if it seems hopeless at times.

we can survive this. we’ve survived before, and we’ll survive again.

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I don't like my first thought being "why are you drinking from your cup?" 😭

WHO tf keeping pads with no wings in production?? Put it in your draws and by the time you walk out the bathroom it’s down the street buying scratch offs at the corner store. Like girl

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These are cute!

How did you attach the hairs/shells? I've been working on a racoon and it's kind of come to a halt because I'm not sure how to attach the face parts.

Today, I introduce to you.....

CROCHET SNAILS

Modelled after the wildlife snails (ofc) + a few other features!!

I will be making others in the future just did this lot first ❤️❤️

(In order individually: Gem, Jimmy, Pearl, Lizzie, Scott and Joel)

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Shh... He is photosynthesizing..

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I misread Joe's "archery" as "anarchy" and was wondering what the arrow had to do with it. xD

Okay so things have mayhaps gotten immediately out of hand with this au.

But! Yippee!! Main hermit ghosts design lineup!!!

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animation of jimmy getting owned in real life

bonus gif of him celebrating i made for funsies :] oh the oblivious bliss...

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me clicking on a video from the silliest man in the world: teehee what wacky hijinks await me

world renown block clown mumbo Fucking jumbo: you ever think about how old technology seems to live forever in the suspended state of whatever the newest advancements were at the time. how most technology immediately and fundamentally tells you when it was important and when it was left in the dust. it’s suspended in its era forever, and in that it is perfect.

stagnation is a form of death but nostalgia is cruel immortality. still i find myself locked in pursuit of it until i finally stumble across the undeath of the mechanical. as my hard earned improvement truly begins to pay dividends, surrounded by my opus of change, i will freeze myself in eternal utopia. the only way to never die is to preemptively kill whoever you might become. i will not have a grave, i will not be ashes and dust. i will be a perfect, extant machine.

me: Ok. i dont think this will plague me at all actually. like video.

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All the winners bouquets together!