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The gallery lighting at the MoMA made me redo my whole portfolio
I was in New York last month and stood in front of a piece that looked completely flat online, but in person the shadows made it feel alive. Went home and realized I'd been using flat digital lighting on all my showcase pieces. Has anyone else switched to mimicking gallery spotlights instead of trying to match a screen?
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paulw6323d agoMost Upvoted
Actually that's not quite right about the shadows. The thing that hits you in a gallery isn't just the shadow placement, it's the falloff. A spotlight creates a really tight cone where the edge of the light just dies. On screen you're fighting backlight bleed and trying to match a phone brightness curve. I spent two weeks messing with hard light angles and it still looked wrong until I realized I needed to fake the way light wraps around the frame edge, like a vignette but more directional. That's what sells the depth, not just the shadow direction.
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