How do you shoot more effective portraits? This week, seven pros share their tips for successful portrait lighting.
01 JUST ONE LIGHT?
While there is a time and a place for complicated lighting set ups, you can achieve hundreds of different lighting effects with just one light source. Don’t be afraid to experiment. If you don’t yet own your own gear, improvise. Great results can be achieved with window light, or even the light from a bare light-bulb. Make sure however, you do all your experimenting before your subject arrives. Use a friend as a stand in for the tests and then make your final adjustments on your subject.
David Knight
Image by David Knight.
02 LESS IS MORE
People skills are more important for a portrait photographer than technical skills but as far as technique goes, I believe in simplicity. "Less is more" is very true for portrait photography. I don’t like complicating things. Every now and then I get drawn to the idea of having big lighting set ups. And then I just end up switching it all off and going back to basics. The sun is still my favourite light source – never direct but bounced, as a backlight or filtered – it’s still the best. I like one hard light too, there is a certain aggressiveness to it, which can be quite revealing.
Julia Schauenburg
Image by Julia Schauenburg.
03 MOVE AROUND
Lighting is an essential part of any portrait. Take the time to move around your subject so as to see how the light falls from differing perspectives.
Tamara Dean
Image by Tamara Dean.
04 DON’T FLASH FROM BELOW
With on-camera flash, don’t shoot from below the subject, the flash will throw unflattering shadows, a bit like when you hold a torch under your face to make goulish faces.
Matt Reed
Image by Matt Reed.
05 KEEP IT SIMPLE
Keep your lighting simple. Just a single directional light source plus a reflector is all that’s needed for most situations. Keeping the light at 45° to the subject allows you to use the shadow to contour the subject’s face.
Daniel Linnet
Image by Daniel Linnet.
06 A REFLECTOR UNDER THE EYES?
As most of my work is about making people look great in a studio, I use a lot of soft, reflected light. I predominantly use soft boxes and beauty dishes, almost always using a reflector under the eyes. It is amazing the difference it makes with just a silver (even homemade) reflector bouncing light in to soften shadows and bags under the eyes. If the subject is lit well in the first place it will save a lot of time in Photoshop.
Damien Bowerman
Image by Damien Bowerman.
07 SIMPLE LIGHTING
Shooting great portraits is about getting the best out of your subject; making sure they’re relaxed and enjoying the process. A simple lighting system always works best for me because it gives me more time to communicate with my subject without having to attend to lots of technical stuff.
Darren Lunny
Image by Darren Lunny.
Article first published in Digital Photography + design magazine, 2010.