Chiaroscuro is a lighting technique first used by Italian woodcut artist in the sixteenth century to create an illusion of a three-dimensional solid form on a two-dimensional surface. In even my earliest pictures, chiaroscuro lighting fascinated me with its ability to render contrast between the lit and unlit in a subject. Chiaroscuro is a play upon light and shape, without regard for color. It is film noir, Jazz in Paris by Miles Davis, a mood, style, and point of view when using the gray shades of shadows in a photograph.
- Del Mar, California, 1997
For me, Chiaroscuro is the morning light which brings clarity and sharpness made for the camera. It is the refracted light the subject has discarded for the conservation of energy in a well made photograph.
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