PORTRAITS - LIGHTING

Whilst being inducted on the studio, we had some time to experiment with different lighting styles and had the chance to make homage to Albert Watson's famous portrait of Steve Jobs. 

After much consideration, we looked at how the lighting was set up and how the lighting fell onto Jobs' face, gaining an understanding of how to set up a simplistic portrait. In this shot, there would have probably been two secondary lights lighting the background to create such a harsh whiteness and a single key light which lights the face slightly above. By having the key light at this angle creates a triangular highlight on the right side of his face, which is called Rembrandt lighting as the artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn would light his portraits this way. 

We started with looking at Butterfly/paramount lighting which uses a single light above the head to create shadows below the chin and nose which accentuates the jawline and hides any unwanted chins which is why it is used more frequently with fashion/beauty photography and usually females. After discussing this lighting style we looked at Clamshell lighting which is essentially just butterfly but with the addition of a light or reflector to counteract some of the harshness which has been created by the key light above. We also briefly played around with loop lighting which is created by the light being moved towards the side of the face to create a shadowed loop on the adjacent side of the face. By moving the light around even further we discussed split lighting, which only lights half the face.  

These are my initial shots from this workshop. As we were given a handout picture of the Steve Jobs portrait the print quality showed the lighting to  be more harsh on his face and as a result this is why my portraits are more harsh in shadow. We also discussed the marks on the backdrop, I believe that if the backdrop was rolled down more it wouldn't have shown any marks and would have created a less distracting and more professional looking portrait. However if I were to recreate this idea again I could potentially have much shallower depth of field creating more of an even blur in the background and wouldn't have shown these marks.

Looking at my final outcomes from this workshop, I would have liked a more contrasted image as I believe these to be too flat and grey. I would usually improve this in post production however I just wanted to show my work in its rawest form. In conclusion, this workshop has helped me understand how to use the studio so when it comes to my portraits final shoot whether I use the studio or not I can be fully comfortable with using it by myself. This workshop has also helped me understand how to light peoples faces in specific ways which will help when it comes closer to my final shoot.