What makes a stunning portrait? Is it the friend being captured? Is it the colours and tonal range? Perhaps it’s a good photographic lens. Actually there are lots of factors to why a portrait turns out well. However, there is one main ingredient to success: lighting.
Lighting, particularly in portraiture, helps to outline and compliment a person’s face. Lighting sculpting, as this is known in professional terms, means that someone’s better features are enhanced. This brings us to the issue about the very best lighting setup for portrait photography. The “best” lighting setup for portraiture is one that carves out the beauty and charm of your subject’s face. Lighting setups for portraits depend a lot on the person and what you want to enhance.
Lighting techniques for portrait photography alter from broad to short, side lit and front lit. Beauty lighting is a term used to light from above and underneath a person, creating softness across a persons face. This is used for fashion and make up images. These are mainly used for women but can be used for men too.
One of the nicest portrait photography lighting styles is called profile lighting. This is a two or three light set up done in the studio. It involves a strip softbox (long rectangular softbox) and a small softbox, and a background light if you are using one. The person sits facing the main light. We need to direct the light to reduce the spread of light. Once that is accomplished we then place the fill light at approximately a 50-60 degree angle from ourselves, toward the person. We let the light to fill in the shadowed areas on the side of their face, without spilling too much on their body. The direction of the fill light is very significant. You may light the background if you wish but remember to position the background light low to the ground so it’s not in the frame.
This lighting setup is great for portraits because the lighting is simple. Once you find the right angle then everything becomes simpler. The light you use for this type of portrait photography are soft boxes mainly. I have not ultilised umbrellas in this situation simply because they splay the light too broadly. The whole design of this lighting technique is to direct the light.
Portrait lighting is a splendidly fun yet difficult feature of capturing people. It’s very tricky in the beginning as light sculpting is very specific and extremely precise. It’s a fine art and one shift of the light to the left or right can utterly change your photo. Once the light has been moved it may not yield the desired outcome.
Lighting setup for portraits usually calls for lights with stands and a complete series of tools to transform the light. Silver umbrellas for example are reflective and will help to create broad light. Shoot-through umbrellas are partially opaque fabric and will soften a broad distribution of light. Gobo’s are deep black pieces of cardboard, of varying sizes, that will block the light from certain reaching parts of your image. Studio lighting kits for portrait photography can offer many lighting accessories to create the desired result.
Lighting is emotion. In all portrait photography we light the photo a certain way to induce emotion in our viewers. Using lots of shadow and blackness will generate different feelings than if you were to light the whole scene. Based on how you create the relationship between the person and the light you can adjust the emotion of the photo completely.
In the most recent portrait image I did in the studio I have set up the main and fill light to emphasize my models profile. The main light is responsible for the light on the very front of her nose and, the shadows that fall on the side of her cheeks. This is due to the angle. The fill light is responsible for the light on the side of her face. I angled it in such a way where we still see a little bit of shadow but not enough to light the whole of her face.
Lighting is one of the aspects of successful portrait photography. Light your subject for mood. Place your subject in a way that enhances that story and don’t forget to tell them how great they look. A model who gets compliments from the photographer will loosen up and you will get better photos.
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