What Do You Call This?
July 28, 2018
The sun is coming in from the left and hitting a window to the right and above what you see in this image. The sun bounces off the window and lands on the sidewalk. What is this rectangle of light called? It seems to me that it’s not a reflection really. I’ve tagged it “reflected light” in other posts. See here and here and here. Is there an official or at least better name for it???
Romancing Reality 
I’d like to know, too. I would cheat and use the tag “shadow” in lightroom for this image, but I have wondered the same thing you’re asking here – is the light part just a reflection, or is there a more specific word for it?
BTW, I hope you bent down and inhaled that lavender! It’s very fragrant here these days, from all the dry sunshine. I bet it’s nice where you are, too.
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July 28, 2018 at 3:47 PM
I have it tagged “shadow” in Lr. But I have a lot of photos tagged “shadow” in Lr. I was hoping Ken would have a guess if not an outright answer. I’m hoping now for Alan, who may not have seen this page yet. Actually, I’m hoping for anyone! . . . I have bent down and smelled the lavender elsewhere, elsewhen. Now my back would complain loudly. Well (said melodramatically with hand to forehead, palm out, and eyebrows tilted down at the outsides, up at the insides), I have my memories . . .
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July 28, 2018 at 4:07 PM
:-)……..:-)
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July 30, 2018 at 12:46 PM
I don’t know of any special word for it, but it is reflected light, it is a (quite possibly detail-less) reflection of the window. A 🙂
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July 29, 2018 at 1:41 AM
Thanks, Adrian. I still wish there were a special word for it. 😉
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July 29, 2018 at 9:47 AM
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Linda, but I’m afraid I’m as stumped as you are. Actually, “reflected light” sounds pretty good to me. It’s interesting I think, that the image would probably look much the same, given the right conditions, if the sun was shining directly through a rectangular opening instead of bouncing off a reflective surface. Then you wouldn’t have this problem 🙂
“Bounced light,” btw, is often used in photography to lighten shadows as you probably know. (See: https://www.nyip.edu/photo-articles/fun-stuff-for-photographers/product-photography-with-bounced-light.) But in this image, it’s part of the subject not an off-camera tool.
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July 29, 2018 at 1:53 AM
Nannus (who commented after you) says I get to make up a word, so I’m thinking about it. Yes, I was thinking about the light possibly coming in from the right through an opening, and its looking the same, depending on the angle of the light. I thought about “bounced light” as a descriptive term but knew that that already meant something else, sort of. “Projected light” would describe it, but it would also describe many other kinds of light. I’ll keep thinking.
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July 29, 2018 at 7:16 PM
Just invent one! Language is not fixed and all the words we are using have been coined by somebody at some time.
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July 29, 2018 at 12:37 PM
Thank you for the encouragement, Nannus. I thought about a name for quite a while after reading your comment, and decided that “ricochet light” would work for me. Then I Googled “ricochet light” and found another photographer who has used that term to mean exactly what I mean! So although I tried to coin a term, a man named Todd Laffler beat me to it. See his post of March 23, 2010: http://lafflerphotography.com/blog/2010/03/sheriff-bing-bing-bing-ricochet-rabbit-for-photographers/. Ricochet light it is.
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July 29, 2018 at 8:16 PM
I love how the comments on your blog edify and delight!
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July 30, 2018 at 12:48 PM
Isn’t it fun?!!!!!! Thank you for your so-many contributions, Lynn.
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July 30, 2018 at 5:32 PM