I decided to do an article to help others study and learn some classic lighting techniques for portraits using equipment that is within the reach of just about any photographer who is tired of taking portrait snapshots.  But how to do this?  Hmmm...such a quandary. I suppose I could just write it out...but really where is the point in that?  I thought of doing a blog about it...but then I found out if I post it here there is the possibility albeit slim that I could win a Fuji FinePix S1800.

Well let me see..ok...rolling up my sleeves now. That's better. First you need, well a camera. It doesn't need to be fancy, any camera will do, but it does help to have one with the ability to set a custom white balance or just shoot black and white if you cannot get a proper white balance with your camera. Shooting RAW can be useful here as well if you are so inclined so that you can more easily adjust the white balance in post processing. A tri-pod is optional.   Although I have high end DSLR's and high end glass I used my Fuji FinePix HS10 to make the images used in this article.

The next thing you will need is lighting. You don't need to spend a lot. I have some clamp on "pan lights" or "garage lights" with ceramic sockets for high wattage bulbs that I picked up at the home center for around $13 (approx. £8) which I outfitted with 150 watt CFL's. You can use high watt incandescent bulbs but they do get very hot so you need to be careful. You can attach the lights to light stands or simply make some stands out of thin lumber stuck into old paint or coffee cans that you fill with cement. You will also want a "fill card". Simply put this is any white cardboard that can be used to reflect light back onto the subject to fill in deep shadows to varying degrees. You might want an assistant to help hold the card if you are not using a tri-pod although you can just prop it against something you have lying around.

You will need to find a location but make sure the location does not have too much ambient light or too many different light sources or it will wreck havoc with the white balance. I use a high top table in a small room that I use for product photography, but you can use any room in your home. While it is not 100% necessary it is best to use some sort of backdrop. I find that plain black paper works very well for the purpose of this exercise. You will just need some way to hang it behind your subject. Black foam core board propped against something works nicely as well.

Now that you have all that you need one last thing. A real human is good but I think that using a white foam head which you can pick up at the beauty supply very inexpensively, under $5 (approx. £3) is best for this since they never complain they are easy to pose and don't charge by the hour so you are free to practice as long as you like.

Here is the set-up:

My Assistant Holding the White Fill Card:

Time to get down to it now that all that is out of the way. It will be hard to get into all the styles of lighting I want to cover here without proper illustrations but I will try. I will start with my personal favorite lighting style, Rembrandt. This is a wonderfully dramatic style of light often used in movies and on TV. It is characterized by one side of the face being brightly lit while the other side of the face falls into shadow with a triangle of light falling around the eye and onto the cheek. I do this by placing the light to the side and above at approx. a 45° angle to the subject. You will see immediately how the light falls on the foam head. You can use a fill card opposite of the light to add a little light to the shadow side of the head to open up the shadows for a less dramatic look. Play with it and you will quickly see all the potential in this type of lighting.

Rembrandt Style Portrait Lighting:

(Note the triangle of light that falls around the eye and the cheek on the shadow side of the face which is indicative of Rembrandt style portrait lighting.)

Rembrandt Style Portrait Lighting with Fill:

Rembrandt Lighting with more fill:

Within the Rembrandt style there can also be "broad lighting" and "short lighting". This simply means that the head is not straight nose pointing at the camera but slightly turned to one side or the other so that one side of the face is more visible than the other. When more light falls on the side of the face that is toward the camera that is called "broad light" because more of the face is in full light. When more light falls on the side of the face that is away from the camera that is called "short light" because less of the face is in full light. Again using a fill card in various ways will slightly change the look. So play away to find what you like best.

Broad Lighting:

Broad Lighting with Fill:

Short Lighting:

Short Lighting with Fill:

Another style of portrait lighting which is often used in glamor style shots it "butterfly lighting". Butterfly lighting is characterized by a butterfly shaped shadow that falls just under the nose as the result of the light being placed in front of and above the subject. Once again using a fill card especially under the chin will open up some of the shadows making it a bit more subtle. Because this is not a real human head the shadow won't quite be that butterfly shape but you will still be able to see exactly what I mean. Have fun with this technique.

Butterfly Lighting:

Butterfly Lighting with Fill:

Butterfly Lighting with More Fill:

There is one more but by no mean last style of portrait lighting that is often used, "Split Lighting". This one is a bit trickier I think. Basically it is where you have the lighting stronger on one side than the other and it is well you guessed it split down the middle of the nose. You can either leave one side totally in shadow or use the fill card or even another light opposite the main light but it will have to be at a lesser intensity or further away from the subject. This is not my favorite style of lighting but it can be quite nice. Basically the set up is like Rembrandt with the light moved further from the subject and in such a way that the distinctive triangle of light on the shadow side of the face that is indicative of Rembrandt disappears but still maintaining more light on one side than the other.

Split Lighting:

The best part of this is that you can play with the lighting any way you want. It can be lots of fun and in the process you will learn something about portrait lighting as well. I will say that the techniques practiced on the foam head will not exactly replicate how light will play on a real human face but since you will have a better understanding of how portrait lighting works you will know what to look for when studying how the light falls on your real human subjects. You will also feel a bit more confident once you understand these techniques.  I hope you found the information useful and maybe even inspiring enough to consider giving it a go. Good luck and happy shooting!

UPDATE: 2 December, 2011

I have decided to add a couple of "head shots" where I used some dramatic edge lighting using a snoot with a grid attached to my off camera flash gun.  Here are the results. (You can view the following images in my gallery by clicking the picture.):

Here you can see where I placed the light:

A slightly different angle and vertical orientation.  I also used a different lens for this to get in tighter: