The Best Lighting Photography Portrait Sets
In lighting photography portrait basics, it is necessary to know the function of all the assorted lights involved. These lighting patterns are considered as standard patterns because they WORK and every photographer should totally understand them…
The main light’s function in lighting photography portraits is to provide the base lighting. The main light is the one that you will typically read and use for your exposure settings.
To be a main or key source, it doesn’t have to actually be a studio strobe. It could be ambient light, the flash on your camera , or even a reflector kicking illumination into the face.
When trying to make your subject appear 3 dimensional rather than 2D , your main light should be positioned off to the side so that shadows- on the opposite side of the face – are created.
Depending on the intensity of your key light, the shadow areas could be very dark and intense. In general, this is not ideal. We will want to brighten the shadow so that details of the face can be seen.
Enter the fill light. As before , this can be an additional studio light, ambient light, the camera’s flash or even a reflector pushing light from the key light into the shadow areas.
The volume of the second light – as compared to the key light – is what will determine the depth and intensity of the shadows. A useful rule of thumb is to have the fill light be about 1/2 the intensity of the key light.
The 3rd light is the background light, separation light, or hair light. Like the others it too can be any type of illumination . This 3rd light is used to separate the subject from the background.
This light can be turned away from the model and directly onto the background, or aimed toward the subject – turning it into what’s called a rim light. Or it could be situated higher than the model and become a hair light.
This is the standard three light set up used in lighting photography portrait subjects in most photo studios around the world.