I was on my way back from the bay this afternoon and while on I-5 the mountains caught my eye. The photo quality isn't the best, but when looking at the mountains in person, the shadows were extremely defined and gave the mountains a lot of depth and dimension. Without sunlight causing these shadows, they would've appeared very flat and one dimensional, but the lighting made all the difference. You could easily see the way each mountain sloped, where it reached its peak and came back down, as well as the little dips. This made the landscape look much more interesting than if everything had been in the shade, and it reminded me of how even though visibility is usually the biggest priority in lighting design for theatre, it is still important to sculpt out the actors and add in dimension.
Agreed! Depth in lighting can be seen in many ways but most importantly is in composition, without a 3 dimensional environment and the use of varying foreground and background the eye cannot differentiate space. This can be clearly seen in a digital rendering that has not been lit, or in reality, in a room lit entirely with fluorescent light - the eye simple does not know where to look, so it can be tricked as to where depth truly exits.
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