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Lesson Seven: Portraits And Studio Lighting

Other than taking pictures of beautiful landscapes and flowers, one of the main reasons people get
into taking pictures is to create beautiful portraits. Whether your models are your friends, family or
paying customers, portrait photography can be very rewarding. In this lesson we'll discuss how to
create flattering portraits of people even if you don't have your own photography studio, how you
can set up your own portable at-home studio on a shoestring budget and we'll also talk about
different kinds of lighting equipment for those people who are ready to take the plunge into
advanced lighting.

For The Beginner - Light

Photography is all about light. Literally translated, it means "painting with light". Having the right
light can make or break your photos. When people are starting out with photography, I always
suggest that they start out by learning to control the available light (also called ambient light) that
they have in the atmosphere to work with. Using flashes and studio lighting can really only be done
effectively when you've got a good handle on what shadows do and how they affect your final photo.
I almost always, to this day, still prefer available light for my portraiture. However, when you're
working inside, and because people as subjects tend to move, studio lighting is sometimes necessary
in order to get the fast shutter speeds needed for successful portraits. But before we get into that, let's
talk about natural light.

Natural (Ambient) Lighting

The portrait above was taken outdoors, using the available light in the atmosphere. We were in the
shade, so there are no harsh shadows on the model's face, and the overall even lighting makes for a
nice fashion portrait.

It was a sunny day when we did this shoot, so having the model in the shade was a big help. If there
hadn't been any shade to work with, I would have used the photographer's greatest friend, the reflector
card. A reflector card is used to bounce light that's shining down back up onto a subject to add light to
the shadowed areas, making for a much more even overall appearance. A reflector card can be made
of any number of things. You can buy them in photo equipment stores, but I generally use either
white poster board, a white umbrella or aluminum foil (first crinkle it all up, then uncrinkle it, then
tape several pieces together until you've got a large piece of several thicknesses that you can work
with easily) to reflect light back onto my subjects and fill in dark spots. One 16x20-inch sheet of
white cardboard (or whatever material you choose) is perfect. For maximum versatility, use a sheet of
cardboard and then tape or glue the crinkled and uncrinkled piece of aluminum foil to the other side.

As a side note, aluminum foil can be especially fun if you can find it in gold color. It will cast a very
nice, warm light onto your subject. Think of it this way - a reflector is a cheap, easy to obtain piece of
equipment that makes your light work twice as hard and can really make your portraits look
professional.

If it's not a sunny day and you have a high, overcast, cloudy sky, congratulations! You've been
blessed with the world's biggest softbox. A softbox is a piece of studio lighting equipment that
nobody should be without. As its name suggests, it spreads a diffuse light out over your subject so as
to avoid harsh shadows. Overcast skies do the same thing. If you get skies like this, grab your subject
and head outdoors to snap as many portraits as you can. I actually have my deck set up outdoors so
that I can hang backgrounds and move my tripod all around so that I can take advantage of this kind
of light. It makes for the absolute best working conditions!

As you can maybe tell from my previous diatribe, for standard portraiture, you don't want shadows
across your subject's face. The more even the lighting, the better.

Rembrandt Lighting
Of course, as with all rules, there are exceptions. Rembrandt lighting will spread shadows onto your
subject, but given the dramatic, beautiful effects you can create like this, you'll see why it's a popular
method of portraiture.

What is Rembrandt lighting?

I'm sure you're all familiar with Rembrandt, the great painter and artist, often referred to as one of the
"Masters" of his time. Rembrandt used a technique of setting his subjects near a large north-facing
window (so no direct sunlight would hit the subject) and turning them in relation to the window to
create flattering lighting effects that really emphasized the high spots and depths of his subject's face.
To achieve such lighting, light is generally higher than the subject, placed to the side of the subject,
and keeps half of the subject's face lit (the side that's turned away from the camera), while allowing
only part of the other side to be lit. If you have a large window that faces away from the sun you can
easily achieve very professional-looking Rembrandt lighting.

Let's not forget, portraits can be of animals, too!

Flash
Flash - on camera flash, that is - is one thing I NEVER use. There is just about no light less flattering
than a bright light aimed straight at your subject that causes harsh shadows. There are studio strobe
units that you set off to the side of your camera and flash as you press the shutter and those are a
completely different thing. Unless you are going to be in a dark situation where you absolutely have
no choice but to use your camera's flash, I don't recommend using it. If you need to and your camera
has a hot shoe where you can use interchangeable flash units, I suggest buying one that stands as high
up and far away from your camera's lens as possible. This will at least produce a more flattering light
and eliminate the "red eye" effect we've all seen too many times. Several manufacturers make white
plastic diffusers that go on the front of the flash - this can be a real help and I highly recommend
them.

A studio flash (also called a strobe) is an extremely bright light that comes on momentarily when you
hit your shutter. Due to the light intensity, these lights can be extremely hot and uncomfortable for a
subject, which is why they are used as a brief strobe instead of left on all the time. We'll talk about
placements of studio lights in a little bit, and if you choose to use strobes, you can place them exactly
the same way as what we'll talk about.

Environmental Portraits
There is also the environmental portrait. This can be really great for capturing the personality of a
person that you're shooting. If you pick up a magazine like "People", you'll see a lot of examples of
environmental portraits. Same with a lot of corporate brochures that like to show a picture of their
president, maybe at his desk, surrounded by whatever product they make or sell, or wearing a hard hat
and out with the blue collar workers if they're an industrial company. The trick is to make the subject
of the portrait comfortably blend into their environment, not just stand there as if they're posing
haphazardly wherever you caught them. A librarian amongst stacks and stacks of books might be a
creative environmental portrait. In these cases, you're going to be using available light - the subjects
won't be coming to an environment where you control what lights are where - so be prepared for a
little longer shutter speed or a diffused flash, and come equipped with your light reflectors to really
make good use of what light there is.

Setting Up Your Own Studio At Home

So how do we do this at home without spending enough money to open up our own full-time
photography studio? Besides your key and fill lights, other light sources can be added - background
lights, accent lights, all kinds of things - but for now we'll stick with the basics and an economical
way to achieve them.

Step one in setting up your home studio begins by finding a suitable area to take photographs. If you
have a room you don't use or you can con your spouse out of letting you use the garage, you're all set.
You need a good chunk of empty space for adequate room. Ideally, you want about five feet of space
between your subject and the background, so you can use depth of field to make the background blur
a bit while keeping the subject sharply in focus. Then you want at least seven feet between the subject
and your camera lens so that you can make good use out of the portrait lens that we talked about in
lesson three. Add in room for you and the tripod, some lights, and you're talking about a good amount
of space. You'll want at least ten feet of width to the area you choose. Once you've found a spot, you
can continue to the next step.

Step two begins in my husband's favorite place, the hardware store. Buy some of those clip-on work
lights. They're really cheap, like five, ten bucks or so. (That's US dollars I'm referring to.) About
250W lights will be perfect. How many you buy will be dependent on which lighting setup you want
to try. I recommend three for good versatility, four if you want to add something called a "hair light"
that we'll discuss later and five if you also want to add a "background light" that we'll also discuss
later. Hair lights and background lights won't be necessary to really flatter your subject's features, but
they can push your photography "over the top" into a really professional level.

Okay, now buy a piece of white foamcore board for each clip-on light. It's sort of like poster board,
but the middle is stuffed full of a Styrofoam-like substance. You can also get it at art supply or office
supply stores.

You want a large piece, 8 feet by 4 feet. (You metric system people are going to have to adapt for this
one.) If you can't find one that large, two pieces that you can cut into 4 foot by 4 foot will work fine.
You can also make these half-size by using 4 feet by 2 feet sheets of foamcore. Very handy for
smaller tabletop photography projects. I use these extensively for a lot of my projects. If you choose
to make the smaller ones, just cut all of the following measurements in half. Smaller ones are also
great if you don't have a huge amount of room to work with.

Make lines down it, dividing it up into four 2-foot sections. Then on these lines, make marks where
all the little circles are indicated in the diagram. They're 18 inches in from the outside of the
foamcore. Now play connect-the-dots by drawing in all of the other lines that are noted on the
diagram. Then use a razor blade or X-acto knife to cut the foamcore along these lines.

Now, put it together. You'll need duct tape, packing tape or

some other kind of wide, heavy-duty tape. If you match up the squares, triangles, x's and z's in the
diagram, you'll get a little pyramid thing.

Take the one I called a "light piece" and a hole in the middle of it large enough that your light's
clip/handle will fit through, as well as the cord and the neck of the lamp. You don't want the hot sides
of the lamp to touch your foamcore, so the hole should be thin. Measure both the clip and the plastic
neck of the lamp and make this hole just big enough that it fits through without the metal part of the
lamp touching it. It will depend on the measurements of your lamp, but mine is about two inches by
five inches. This piece will get taped inside of the small hole, as you can see in the pictures.
 Now, you can choose what you'd like to cover the
large opening that will diffuse the light. This is referred to in the lighting side of photography as a
"scrim". A piece of white bedsheet will work fine - kids bedding is best as you can get it in heat-
resistant fabric. You can also go to the fabric store and get all different kinds of fabrics. The thicker it
is, the more diffuse your light will be. If you plan on always using the same cover, you can just cut
the fabric to fit and tape it over the large hole. If you think you might want to change it, you can
either sew elastic around the edges so it fits over the hole like a shower cap or use clips to hold it on. I
go for the shower cap idea, personally. Besides diffusing your light this way, you can also get sheer
colored fabrics that will actually color your light for interesting effects you can experiment with later.
I know I mentioned the idea of heat-resistant fabric, and make SURE that is what you use, and don't
leave your lights on unattended.
Now that we've gone through this process (easier than the directions make it sound, though, right?),
let's have a look at what a difference the diffuser makes.

Diffuser No Diffuser

Notice how much of a harsh shadow there is without the diffuser. You'll find for portrait photography,
this will really make all of the difference. Skin will look softer and you'll still get enough shadow that
the lighting won't appear flat.

Now is the best time for me to mention that if you have no interest in going to all of this trouble, nor
do you want to spend the money on commercial soft boxes, you've got a second-best alternative.

You're still going to have to buy a white lighting umbrella for each light, but they're reasonably
priced. These may not cut harsh shadows as well as a softbox, but they'll do an admirable job,
regardless.

Okay! Now you just need to find stands for your lights to and you're ready to go. One for each light,
depending on how many lights you've decided you want. You can either buy them from a
photographic supply store, OR since we're being super-creative and frugal here, you can opt for other
choices.

Since the lights we bought have those fantastic, sturdy clips, they'll clip to darn near anything and stay
put fairly well. If you have ladders, stools or chairs, they'll all make good (if rather makeshift) stands
onto which you can clip your lights. I want to emphasize that you want to make sure whatever you
use is very sturdy for safety reasons.

You can also buy lengths of PVC pipe at the hardware store and all kinds of joints to fashion it into
whatever shape you choose. This can make a nice, sturdy light stand as well. If you look at
professional light stands, you can create the same design with PVC pretty easily. My husband made
one for me that is sort of an upside-down horseshoe, so I can clip my lights above my subject and/or
on either side. I also have separate individual light stands so I can vary the distance between my key
lights and fill lights. If you want to spend the money, the professional light stands are ideal - they
telescope into different lengths and have sturdy tripod bases. They also fold up conveniently so you
can put them away in the corner when you're done with them. So keep any and all of those options in
mind when you're wondering how to set up your lights. Just because you don't want to spend an arm
and a leg on equipment doesn't mean that you can't make your own equipment that will function just
as well as the professional stuff!

How do you set your lights up in the most flattering way for your subject?

This is as easy as it gets!

This will do okay when you're starting out, especially if you use something to bounce the light back
onto the subject to help with any shadows. Give it a whirl if you're just starting out with portrait
photography. It will help you when you try more complicated lighting setups. When I say "more
complicated", I truly don't want to scare anyone off from trying other things. Maybe "complicated" or
"advanced" aren't the right words, because lighting is pretty easy - it's all about trying new things,
experimenting and just moving light stands around. The picture of the girl used the key light a bit off
to the side and a diffuser card on the other side. Dramatic shadows but still a nice effect.

Okay, a little more "complicated" setup follows, but first, let's talk about different ways you can place
your lights and why.

A portrait lighting system usually includes at least two light sources, the main light (called the key
light) and the fill light - which is usually a less intense light, a light of the same intensity placed
further away (equating to a less intense light) or a reflector. There are two main portrait lighting styles
- broad lighting and short lighting. These terms are used to imply where the lights are placed in
reference to your subject.

Broad Lighting:
To create a broad light, you'll need to pose your subject so that 2/3 to 3/4 of their face is facing you
and your camera and then direct the key light toward the side of the face that is closest to the camera.
This is a flattering technique if your subject has a long or thin face, as it will add weight and width to
the overall face.

Short Lighting:
For short lighting, you would pose your subject the same way as above, but direct your key light
toward the side of the face that is furthest away from the camera. This type of light will slim a heavier
face.
This is the next most "advanced" lighting setup. You second light (the fill light) should be further
away from the subject than the key light, or a light bulb of lesser intensity. It will be quite flattering to
your subject's features. Notice the lack of shadows compared to the photo made with the first lighting
setup.
Adding a background light to the second lighting setup, you'll really notice a beautiful effect. It will
make your subject stand out from the background and really give the appearance of a professional
portrait.
Finally, the last light you might add is called a "hair light". This works as a backlight and sits behind
the subject, focusing on their hair. It will give the edges of their head a nice, attractive glow.

Glossary of Lighting Terms

Following are some general lighting terms. We've gone over a few in this lesson, but you may get
creative ideas from others, and we'll use yet others in our next lesson on studio lighting for
commercial and product shots.
Bounce A reflector, usually white, silver or gold, used to bounce light back from the main light
onto the subject.
Diffuser Thin, translucent material used to diffuse light. Can be tracing paper, umbrellas,
translucent plastic or even a bedsheet, as discussed in this lesson.
Effects A light that is neither the key light or fill light. These are usually used as back lights to
Light bright out a vivid "halo" around a subject's hair, or sometimes a "background light"
used to create interesting patterns on the background.
 Fill Lights which fill in the shadows on the subject, usually not as high in intensity as the
key light or further away from the subject than the key light.
Flag The opposite of a reflector, these are sometimes used in studio lighting. They are dark
and absorb extra light in order to maximize shadows. Not generally used in portraiture
but very common in studio product shots where dramatic lighting is needed.
Oftentimes a white reflector card will be painted black on the other side so it can fill
this purpose.
Gel Translucent or transparent colored material used to modify the color of light.
Gobo A sheet with cut-outs on it that creates interesting shadows when placed in front of
your light source. Again, not generally used in portraiture (unless used as a
background light), these are common in product and stock photography. Imagine a
metal sheet with squares cut into it resembling those of a Belgian waffle. If you angle
your light at 45 degrees to a background and put this piece of metal in front of it, you'll
get dramatic trapezoidal or rhomboidal effects. You can make your own and they can
be quite fun to play with!
Key Light The main light source, casting the dominant light and shadows in an image.
Reflector A "bounce" as mentioned above or a dish-shaped item that surrounds the back of a
light source, ensuring no light "escapes" and it is all directed at the subject.
Scrim Heat-resistant fabric diffuser for softening lighting.
Snoot A cone-shaped item you can place over the front of your light. It intensifies the light
and gives you the ability to direct your light source in very specific places. Again, not
used in portraiture very much, but you can produce amazing results with these in still
life photography.
Soft Box Large, diffuse light source made by shining light through a diffuser. These offer the
same soft, flattering lighting as a north-facing window in Rembrandt lighting. A
REALLY large soft box is often referred to in the industry as a "swimming pool".
Umbrella One of the photographer's best friends, the umbrella can either be used by shining light
directly at it and then using it to bounce that light onto the subject, or by shining light
directly through it, creating a soft box, of sorts. Photographic umbrellas are usually
made of a white, translucent material, and the larger the better.

Assignment I'm going to leave the assignments fairly open on this lesson, because you all will
have different ideas of what you want out of this class. Ideally, to get the most out of this lesson,
you should first try a portrait using available light with a reflector. Then another using
Rembrandt-style lighting using a window. Lastly, I'd recommend setting up four softboxes or
umbrella lighting setups and try a portrait using key light. Then another one adding fill light,
another adding a background light and lastly a portrait using all of those plus a hair light. If you
can start out with the easiest style and work to the most complicated, all using the same model,
you'll really learn a lot by trial and error. Portrait lighting can be a lot of fun - use your
imaginations and be creative! I look forward to seeing what you come up with!