Light and Texture

This picture is from one of my favorite photo shoots ever. My aunt had just adopted three baby bunnies and as soon as they came to visit me, I pulled out my camera and my flash. Normally when I do a photo shoot, I take a good fifteen minutes to set up the lighting; I like to make sure the light is flattering, soft and I want to make sure there are no hot spots. However, as anyone who has worked with animals know, most animals will not stay still for fifteen minutes. So I just pointed my flash behind me (for the light to bounce off the white wall and back onto my subject) and hoped the lighting would be ok as I concentrated on keeping the bunnies together on the box. I didn't realize it at the time, but because the bunnies were so furry, I could have put the light anywhere towards them and it would have been ok. Hot spots come when too much light hits a single spot on the subject then reflects back to the eye. It is extremely unnatural looking (you rarely see hot spots in real life) and I hate them. But all three bunnies have extremely dense fur, which absorbs most of the light. Therefore it makes it nearly impossible to have hot spots, because of the texture of the subject. So lesson learned: it is not only about what light you put onto a subject, but about how the light bounces back into your eye. You could have terrible lighting but with a subject like a cute bunny with dense fur, the subject will still end up looking like it is evenly lit.