Light—Science & Magic is getting to be the classic text on photographic lighting. You might challenge that, however, by asking to what extent this book, about a rapidly evolving subject, could ever be considered the same book as its first edition. First published in 1990, with a second edition in 1997, we would expect a book that is largely technical to have obsolesced in that time. After all, when we first wrote Light—Science & Magic, transmitting pictures electronically was a secret craft understood only by a few in the news business. Film was a requirement for shooting a picture. If a client needed a black-and-white brochure, we actually had to make prints. In a world of digital image acquisition, desktop electronic retouching, and Web publishing, how much can a new edition of any photographic text resemble its ancestors?

As it turns out, quite a bit, because the principles in Light—Science & Magic are just as new—and just as old—as they were on the day the book was first printed. The book has been updated throughout. “The Extremes” chapter, for example, deals with the digital characteristic curve, substantially different from that of film. However, that substantial difference turns out to have surprisingly little impact on how we light the subject. Lighting that would have worked with film is likely to work with digital capture.

Styles of photographic lighting have changed and will continue to do so. Light—Science & Magic does not go out of style because it was not, is not, and will never be based on style. The book is based on the behavior of light, and its principles will not change until fundamental physics does. Photographers know this, and that is why sales of the previous editions have increased every single year. The book has legs to stand on.