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Portrait Lighting

Playing with Light and Dark

Portrait lighting can make or break your photographs. The word photography comes from the Greek ‘phos’ (light) and ‘graphis’ (paintbrush), so the literal meaning of the word photography is ‘painting with light’. Placing the subject in beautiful light allows you to make their cheekbones stand out or their eyes look bigger – illuminating your model in an appealing way truly can bring the photo to life.

Portrait Photography Lighting Techniques

Portrait Lighting: Shooting Outdoors

The most attractive portrait lighting tends to be natural light. When shooting outdoors, avoid direct bright sunlight as it will create harsh shadows, and show up wrinkles and blemishes. Hard sunlight also makes your model squint.

Early morning or late afternoon light is beautiful for portraiture as it envelops the subject in a warm, golden light. Soft, even light, as produced on a mildly overcast day, is also flattering and doesn’t cause harsh shadows.

© Jose Antonio Sánchez Reyes | Dreamstime.com

If you are shooting in very bright light, you can soften the effect and fill in the shadows by using a reflector. Purpose-made reflectors in white, silver and golden can be bought from most camera shops, but a piece of white card, at least 1 m square, will do just fine.

Off-camera flash goes a long way to making outdoor images look professional. For example, if the natural light is soft and even, off-camera flash provides perfect fill-light. Taking a flash-lit portrait of somebody at sunset is an almost sure-fire way to get a dramatic effect. Even bright sunlight can be improved by using flash as fill-light.

One great tip is to shoot in RAW format outdoors. RAW files can cope with a very large variety of tones and you’ll have a better chance of capturing the extreme dynamic range in front of you.

Keep in mind that ambient light may change quite dramatically whilst you’re working, for example when the sun emerges from behind a cloud, or vice versa.

Portrait Lighting: Shooting Indoors

You really don’t need loads of studio equipment to take a beautifully lit picture indoors. You can utilize natural light for indoor portraiture by placing the subject next to a window. For three different shots, shoot with the subject facing the light, side on to it, and leaning against the window so you get a white background flooding through.

© Suprijono Suharjoto | Dreamstime.com

A doorway is also wonderful for portrait shots. By its very nature a doorway collects light; it's like a natural reflector. Consider augmenting that with a reflector on the ground to bring shadows back up. White French doors in particular can make a female portrait look spectacular.

Try to avoid using the camera’s built-in flash for portrait photography as it produces unflattering light and harsh shadows, as well as the red-eye effect.

If you do want to use flash photography, an external flash is the way to go. Even a single external flashgun combined with a reflector, can produce stunning results. For the best results, use a diffuser over the flash to soften the light and distribute it more easily.

Portrait Studio Lighting

If you choose to work in a studio-setting, two lights usually provide enough illumination for a headshot. Use one light on the subject and another on the background. You also need a softbox (or umbrella) at 45 degrees and a reflector on the opposite side to control the shadow. The most flattering results can be obtained by using a softbox above the camera and the reflector below.

For detailed instructions on how to shoot professional quality studio portraits at home with minimum cost and fuss, please visit my portrait lighting tutorial.

Portrait Lighting: Illuminating the Face

Look at your model’s face and imagine a line dividing the face into equal halves down the middle of the nose.

If they turn their head at about 45 degrees away from you, less of one side will be visible to you. This side is what professional photographers call the ‘short’ side. The side that you can see the most of is the ‘broad’ side.

The best way to light the subject’s face is from the short side. This ensures even light over the facial features, whilst hiding the ear that is pointing towards you in shadow. Remember, the difference between narrow lighting, which puts more of the face in shadow and therefore slims the face, and broad lighting that widens and fattens the face, is only a slight turn of the head. Make sure that the shadow of the nose follows the natural line from the nose to the mouth and check that both eyelids are evenly lit. If they are, chances are you’ve got the lighting just right.

Portrait Lighting Techniques

Portrait Lighting

Keep in mind that generally harsh lighting doesn’t work very well for female portraiture, probably because there is an expectation of softness and subtlety in a female portrait, whilst male portraits usually lend themselves to an atmosphere of strength and drama.

If you enjoyed this page on portrait lighting, make sure to visit my page on portrait poses too.

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Read, reflect and be inspired. If you find something of value on our portrait photography lighting techniques page, enjoy its gifts and please pass it on to your friends.

SBI!