Ahh yes, lighting....

[Jeff Zueger]

Don't be afraid of shadows, they are your friend. The key is to use them to your advantage. Shadows create depth and dimension. I like to light in layers within a scene. Sometimes less is more, don't overlight. Back in the 80s when I first got into the business, I found a VHS video that Rosco put out called 'Lighting In The Real World' This video got me excited about lighting and have loved it ever sense. It gave a great overall look at quality of light, theory of lighting, color correction (etc). It may be a little dated now, because there are new lighting technologies, but the basics are still the same. Good luck

 

[Florian Stadler]

1 Observe light
2 learn to see light
3 recognize light and its correlation to mood
4 contrast, quality, color of light
5 mix and match your experiences as if you were cooking a meal with ingredients according to your experience, knowledge and instinct
6 start from 1 again and rinse and repeat, it gets better every cycle...