One Light Portraiture
Posted by photonovice on August 25th, 2008
During a smaller family gathering I set up my gray fun-to-fold background and one studio strobe with the 1mx1m softbox on it and persuaded my family members to suffer a bit in front of my camera.
The light source was just a few feet from the models’ faces slightly pointing down on them. I really like the effect of this lighting. It is subtle enough - due to the proximity of the relatively big light source - not to grab the viewer’s attention and also natural looking because there is only one light.
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There are a few big guys who use extremely simple lighting set-ups and yet make amazing portraits, like Timothy Greenfield-Sanders or Platon just to name two of them. Visit their sites to get some inspiration.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
One Light Portraiture…
Aiming to get good portraits with simple light set-up? One strobe and a softbox might be enough….
August 25th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
One light can be very versatile. I really like the look that results from a single strobe or monolight into a silver umbrella as the primary light, and a large white reflector card as the fill. Depending on how you set up your reflector, you can even get some subtle hair lighting out of it too! Big fan of the single light techniques!
August 26th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Zack Arias has a great workshop and DVD out that’s all about shooting portraits and musicians with a single light. He uses speedlights and shoots outdoors for a lot of it too, which surprises the hell out of a lot of people. When I saw this on PhotographyVoter I thought it was going to be talking about that, actually!
Check it out over at http://onelightworkshop.com/
September 10th, 2008 at 1:39 am
I often ask my class how many lights to do start with?….
Then answer is based on this question…..
If they get it wrong, they fail the class….
The Question….. How many suns do we have?
One light is the only natural lighting solution and should always be your first choice , in my opinion, and build from there.
Rosh
http://www.newmediaphotographer.com