Shadow Study

[Pipsmom]

I have been studying application of shadows for a few days now to enrich my knowledge of direction and how they fall but there are some photo's I get stuck on.....
Could one of our Masters explain how to determine what they look for in observation to determine directional path of the sun when its Not obvious at least to me.....

The fall picture below I drew arrows where the light is casting a glow on top and shadow below as if its high, but some trees seems to follow another path from another direction, thats whats confusing me.

The boy and man picture, appears to be shot straight on maybe with a flash, I don' t know, even the shoes don't cast a shadow on the wall...... I can't determine any facial shadows to give a clue where is the direction of light coming from except a tiny area on collar shadow on the right as if the source is coming from the left ??? But everything else doesn't reflect that direction........ more ?????
Any article, tutorial or commentary very welcome as I try to understand some pictures I run across

 

[Pipsmom]

I tried to edit and add but it wont let me....
I wanted to pointed to the bricks that show the sun from above shining downward as some bircks do have a small drop shadow...but thats not reflected on the people though..more ????

 

[chrisdesign]

Both images seem to be photographed in a diffuse lighting situation. On an overcasted day maybe.

The first image shows a light source from the top left. I agree with your pointers.
The second image has a shadow between the knees of the man and the boy. This image is not shot with a flash.
Images like these are ideal for composites, as the lighting and colors can easily be manipulated.

 

[Pipsmom]

Thank you so much

 

[fredfish]

I don't know how useful this is as it is aimed at painting but this is a tutorial about light sources, shadows etc. tutorial it is quite wordy - but I picked up some interesting pointers.

Cheers

John

 

[Pipsmom]

Thank you ever so much John!
Yes, its very valuable as I can already tell...I got it bookmarked for safe keeping and in-depth reading

 

[chrisdesign]

Very interesting tutorial.
Thanks John.