To return to Mr. de Mille’s analogy, lighting is like music: for with identically the same resources at hand, no two artists work the same way, even though their results may in the end prove all but identical. So, too, cinematographic lighting has its Mozarts and its Wagners—its artists who specialize in light, delicate tones, and others who prefer the sweeping effect, the crashing crescendo…
This, in turn, necessitates the intrusion of the personal pronoun. If I do a thing one way, it does not follow that it is what John Seitz, or Karl Struss, or George Barnes would do. It does not follow that my way is the only way: it is simply the method that my experience and my personal inclinations suggest…
Personally I have always felt that the problem of lighting is generally approached from the wrong angle. Instead of approaching any given set or action with the one question, “How shall I light this?” I prefer to approach it with the thought of “What compositions can I make with this set and this action?” Then I proceed to make those compositions—and the lighting automatically takes care of itself.
Notes from Chinese-American film pioneer James Wong Howe on the art of lighting
Cinematographic Annual, Vol. 2, 1931