One of my assignments in an art class was to paint a monochrome of a space with a single source of light, a study in modelling with light. It’s an interesting experiment to try with photos as well.

Rooms lit by a single source of light, in all these cases a window.

It is interesting to note that in the photos the light falls away dramatically only a foot from the window. To the eye most of the details in the room were easy enough to see, the same as in the painting. However the camera still has trouble adjusting between light and dark, and that’s why shadow/highlight adjustment was created. Even so, I suspect I used that adjustment on all of these photos and I still can’t make out as much detail as I actually could see.

B&B Verdi in Bruges – the view from El’s room.A skull in window in the Movie ‘Museum’ & Trading Post in Kanab, Utah.Guard station with a pierced window and a fan, in the Red Fort in Delhi, India.A small bird perches in the attic window in the church at Stevns Klint in Denmark.There were several of these single window light sources in Den Gamle By, a recreated village in Aarhus, Denmark. Blue glass vases in a window of a museum displaying glassware in Puebla, Mexico. The museum had motion detector lights which turned on when you came into a room. I caught this before they had detected me! Vestuary in an old church dimly lit by a stained-glass window (Mold, Wales). A window in the artist Monet’s house in Giverny catching the afternoon light (France).

• More of Travel Word’s ‘It’s All About Light’ Challenge.
• More of Nancy Merrill Photo Challenge: Light and Dark.