From clueless to competent
with studio lighting
In portraiture a "win" is finding the comibination of facial angle and lighting on the face which flatters the subject the most. There are many paths to that goal, but the quickest is to understand the cause and effect variables of pose and lighting. I suggest and teach starting with the easiest stuff and mastering it before trying to "whack" every possible lighting combination.
The easiest lighting strategy for a beginner to master is an oblique pose with short lighting on a dark background. This also one which flatters all facial types except long narrow ones as better than any other dark background lighting strategy. That doesn't mean it is always the best strategy, or the only one that you should ever use, but learning how to execute it effectively is the quickest path from totally clueless to a decently lit flattering portrait of the wife and kids and a baseline you can compare with other lighting strategies you explore later. That's why I teach it and get type cast as a one-trick pony.
Short lighting on a dark background is the easiest technique to master because both the lighting and the posing are so obvious and intuitive.
Lighting: Forget learning lighting patterns by rote or what they are called, just focus on putting the highlights on the parts of the face you want the viewer to see and then hide everything else in the shadows to varying degrees. Just put the highlights around the eyes and mouth - the front of the face - and hide the less flattering bits like ears and the back of the head in shadows. The deeper the shadows the more the distractions are hidden and the easier it is for the viewer to find what is really important in the photo; the expression created by the more brightly lit the eyes and mouth. Like the winning strategy in WAM, its pretty obvious once you think about it.
The key light creates the shadows which give the face its 3D appearance. The darkness of the shadows (the lighting ratio) is controlled by the relative brightness of the fill. The inclination of most beginners is to place the fill on the side opposite the key light. That seems logical but when placed to the side of the head it generally will overfill the shadow side ear making it an unwanted distraction or be shaded by the cheekbone resulting in dark voids on the face in creases where neither the key or fill reach. Putting the fill light near the camera axis will ensure that all shadows visible to the camera will be filled uniformly. There will be no dark voids and the fall off of the keylight which creates the highlight to shadow tonal transistions will be smooth and uniform. The only situation when camera axis fill is not desirable is in a profile view, for the same reason its not a good idea to place it on the side in a full-face or oblique pose; it tends to overfills the side of the head. Camera axis fill will create a second catchlight in the middle of the pupil which gives the eyes a somewhat dazed look. It is easily retouched with the paint brush or clone tool during editing. I have separate more detailed tutorials on lighting ratios and the role of fill.
Facial Angle: In general the thinner a face looks the better it looks. The front of the face will always look wide when viewed full-face because the sides of the head are visible beyond the eye and the ears stick out into space to varying degrees in a full-face view if not covered by hair. What is in front of the eyes on the face is all the good stuff you want to see. The parts of the head behind the eye sockets are the things you want to hide as much as possible for the most flattering view. Makes sense doesn't it?
As a face slowly turns sideways to the camera its appearance changes. One side of the head and ear visible beyond the eye disappears from view and the indentation of the eye socket and the rounded shape of the far cheek comes into view creating a compound curve from eye to chin which is far more attractive than the oval full-face shape. The head is turned too far if the far eyeball is profiled or starts to disappear and the tip of nose may sticks out past the cheekline. What is "just right" varies from face-to-face. It is a judgment call based on a good balance between the profiling of the eye and cheek and the appearance of the chin, but in general the subject's nose winds up pointing 45 degrees to the right or left of the camera axis. This view is called "Obilique" and is the most flattering for most facial types because it reveals the shape of the face.
The head can be turned obliquely to the camera in two directons:
1) Nose turned away from the key light: Half of the face, the far side which is nicely profiled by the oblique angle, and one eye fall into the shadow created by the nose hiding parts of the face you want the viewer to see. At the same time the side of the head and ear now visible to the camera is brightly lit by the key light, even more so than the highlighted half of the front of the face. The parts best hidden from view are instead spot lit. This is called broad lighting because the key light hits the broad side of the head (half of the front and all of the side).
2) Nose turned towards the key light: The far side of the face profiled against the background is now the brightest lit area on the face creating maximum eye-catching contrast with the darker background. If the key light is moved around the face to keeping it about 45 degrees from the center of the nose (90 from the camera axis) the highlight pattern created by the key light will illuminate both eyes, both cheekbones beneath them defining their shape, and the mouth (all very good things you want the viewer to see). When the key light is positioned so it only hits the front of the face (the part in front of the eyes) the broad side facing the camera the side of the head behind the eye sockets and all its distractions you want hidden will be fade into the shadows, The key light height will control where the nose shadow falls. Ideally it should fall down over the side of the nose and top of the nostril, not sideways on to the shadow side cheek and eye, The depth of the shadows is controlled by the fill light positioned near the camera axis. This is called short lighting because the short side of the face (i.e., the front of it) has the light on it.
From these descriptions of cause and effect it should be obvious which strategies are more flattering. That's why I say that the technical aspects of lighting and posing aren't rocket science and in fact are quite simple once you use a systematic approach, your eyes, and some common sense about what attracts attention in a photo.
But please DO NOT BELIEVE ME when I say a short lit oblique pose is the most flattering, for most people, most of the time and thus the quickest path from clueless to competent. Prove it to yourself. Its as simple as 1-2-3 and will take about 30 minutes:
1) Pose someone full face with key light at 45 degrees from nose and camera axis so the key light hit only the front of the face and fill near the camera. Use a subject with short hair on a dark background. The bigger the ears are the better for this test. For this exercise set the lights at the same stregth if you have a flash meter and same power setting and distance if you don't have a meter.
If you are using window light see this tutorial for lighting diagrams.
2) Without changing the light positions turn the person away from the key light until the far side of the face and ear disappears from view. That's broad lighting.
3) Turn the person back past full face to the oblique view in the other direction, facing directly at the key light (which should still be 45 degrees off the camera axis). Now move the key light backwards so it is about 90 degrees to the camera and 45 degrees behind the centerline of the subjects nose. Adjust the key light so the side of the head facing the camera (everything past the eye socket) is in shadow and the shadow from the tip of the nose falls down over the top or over the shadow side nostril. That's short lighting.
Don't rely on the diagrams. Shoot the photos. Compare the appearance of the person in all three views. Which is the most flattering to your eye? That's what counts, so you be the judge.
Extra Credit Assignment:
After you master the oblique, short lit pose try a profile. Its the exact same key light pattern on the face as full-face and oblique so you still keep the key light about 45 degrees to the side of the nose. The face and key light rotate another 45 degrees relative to the camera axis. The fill moves from near the camera, where it would overfill the side of the head, to in front of the face where the fill will fall off gently front-to-back relative to the front ofthe face making the side of the head dark and increasing the attraction of the highlights on the cheek and ridge of the nose. You want the side of the head very dark with almost no fill because the highlight area attracting the viewer to the front of the face is very small.
I know what looks good for my face and its not what I see in the mirror.
I learned lighting by window light and had used it for portraits and a pair of strobes for candid photos for many years, never having the space for a studio or the real need for studio lights. Softboxes create soft but directional light which models the face similarly to a window so its was just a matter of learning how to use a slightly better set of tools which afforded precise control and operated on my schedule instead of the sun's. This self portrait was the result of my first session with my new lights. It's been retouched to remove the catchlight from the fill light and about 10 years worth of wrinkles. It's not a textbook perfect oblique pose because the ear shows past the far eye, but then I don't have a textbook perfect symmetrical face either as you will see below.
The fact this photo isn't a textbook perfect oblique pose illustrates what I came to realize about rules and terms for precise facial angles like 2/3 or 3/4 you see in most books on lighting. Forget about fractions and use your eyes! There are no rules that apply in all situations. In general an oblique short lit pose like this one will be more flattering for most people because the balanced lighting pattern illuminating the entire front of the face makes even an asymmetrical face look symmetrical when the good (usually the least wide) side faces the camera. There is no rule, magic forumla or fraction which dictates how to set up an oblique view. I start by framing the photo so the far eye and cheekbone profiled then look at the appearance of the area of the chin beyond the mouth. If as in my case if the person has a thin weak chin its necessary to strike a visual balance between the appearance of the eye area and the chin line. In my case it required some of the side of the head visible beyond the far eye and the ear on the right to show. That ear sticks out sideways, so much so that in this photo it actually ends up appearing more balanced and symmetrical relative to the one photo left than in a full face view.
I didn't learn this from Monte or in a book, I experimented to find my "best" side. The experiment wasn't flattering but I posted it on DPReview to share my insights and try to educate others about evaluating faces. I started with the worst possible view of myself, a full-face flat snapshot. See what I mentioned about the ear on the right side (my left)?
Next I took it into Photoshop, split it down the middle and mirrored it to get symmetrical right and left side renditions; what I'd look like if my face was symmetrical depending on which way the creator tossed the dice:
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which is my best side does it? I'd been looking at that face in the mirror for 50 years and knew it looked asymmetrical but didn't really think about how to fix it in a photo until doing this little experiment. Like you, after seeing the two photos I had a clue what to do and look for when analyzing other faces.
Now look at that portrait above again. Anybody can take a great looking photo of a great looking face, but look what I had to work with! It wasn't an accident or lots of trial and error that resulted in the fact I am facing to the right, or that I was three feet below the camera and 10ft, away using a 200mm lens to get the most flattering angle and perspective.
Which did you learn more about facial analysis from? Was it my nice studio shot or those horrible photos with the written explaination? Now do you understand why I don't do pictoral tutorials? I don't want you to copy photos I want you to grasp concepts so you can figure out how to handle any situation that comes your way in a portrait or any other type of photo. The leading the eye stuff works in all styles and for all subjects.
If you are a beginner who has never done portraits you now have a baseline to grow from creatively as you try different backgrounds and lighting styles and something you know works to fall back on when you start to get confused. And you will get confused; there many variables to deal with and they change with each face, background and clothing situation.
As you experiment you'll discover that the short lit oblique strategy for dark backgrounds doesn't work as effectively on white ones. That may confuse you at first, but remember the thing that attracts the eye of the viewer isn't the light but rather the contrast between the front of the face and everything else in the photo it creates. On a white background the brightly lit front a short lit face will tend to disappear into the background and the darker side of the head will attract more attention. But if you use a lighting strategy which makes the side of the head brighter than the front, the front will contrast more than the side with the white. You will have already practiced one strategy for that in step #2 of the test; broad lighting.
I can help you with the competency part of the learning curve and if you do this exercise and understand it you'll be 80% of the way up it. You are on your own for the really steep creative part.
Regards,
Chuck Gardner
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