DETERMINING THE LENGTH OF A CAST SHADOW

One of the most commonly asked questions about cast shadows is, "How long or short do I make them?" We could get into a long and involved explanation, describing different lighting situations, such as single or multiple light sources, and viewing the subject from a bird's-eye perspective, blah, blah, blah…but we won't get into all that. After all, this is a quick tips book, so we'll oversimplify the answer just a bit.

What it comes down to is this: The length of the shadow is determined by the vertical position of the light source. For example, if the light source is directly above an object, it would hardly cast any shadow at all (see the illustration upper left), but if it was closer to the horizon line, it would cast a longer shadow (see the illustration, bottom left). In layman's terms: the higher the light source, the shorter the shadow; the lower the light source, the longer the shadow.