Portrait lighting, one light, part 2

We have seen some photos of the model Priscillar with her face straight at the camera, like a passport photo. Often it is nicer to turn the head of the model. This shows off the shape of the face better. A photograph is two dimensional, flat. But the face we are showing has depth. The depth is shown off better on a photo when the head is turned to the side a little. Especially the shape of the cheeks and eye sockets comes out better. Also, to show the depth of the face, shadows are important, and these we can control by the position of the light compared to the position of the lens.

Here I am going to show some photos of Priscillar with her head turned a little. This has big implications for the light, because the photo is now a-symmetrical: it is different on the left side, from the right side. That means it makes a big difference if you place the light on the left side or the right side.

1

When the head is turned, the side of the face turned towards the camera looks long. The side of the face turned away from the camera looks short. When we light from the long side, we call it long lighting, when we light from the short side we call it short lighting. (see photo 1) Some (old fashioned) portrait photography guides recommend to light people with a broad face with short lighting, and people with a slim face with long lighting. I find this rigid and not conducive to creative photography.

A practical issue is: with short lighting on people wearing glasses there is a chance of the reflection of your light to show in the glasses and hide the eyes. Most of the time this is only desirable with sunglasses, not with clear ones. Then slightly turning the head, moving the camera or changing to long lighting will help.

2

 In photo 2 Priscillar has turned her face to the right. The light is straight above the camera, you see the shadow under the chin. This is called frontal lighting.

3

 In photo 3, I moved the light to a position straight in front of the nose. You see the light straight onto the face, while the side of the head is in the shade. This provides more modeling (depth) to the face then frontal lighting. This is called butterfly lighting, because the shadow under the nose is supposed to take on the shape of a butterfly. See how the light does bring out the texture of the shirt better then frontal lighting.

4

In photo 4, I moved the light further to the right. Now you see a shadow on the left side of the nose. The cheek turned towards the camera is mostly in the shade. We call this short lighting, because the light is directed towards the short side of the face.This position provides even more modeling then butterfly lighting.

5

Short lighting makes for big shadows. This gives a darkish mood, that can be beautiful, but often we want a brighter feel for our photos, especially in commercial portraits, and wedding photos. To achieve that I brought in the gold reflector again, on the left, to throw some light in the shadows. As with the light, the position of the reflector is important for the placement of the shadows. With the reflector on the left side, we get the deepest shadows between the lit side of the face and the side lit by the reflector, in this case the area around the earring is lit by the reflector. From the corner of the mouth to the eye you see a darker band. If you do not want this, but want to open up the shadows evenly, you place the reflector close to the lens.

6

In photo 6, I moved the light to the other side. Now it lights the long side of the face. We call this long lighting. There are clear shadows that provide modeling, but the shadows are much smaller than with short lighting. Notice how this gives a very different feel to the portrait. I use short lighting more than long lighting, but that is a matter of personal preference.

7

In photo 7, I show a specific use of long lighting. I used a grid on my flash to light only a small area of the photo. I get a dark, introspective mood, where the face is brightly lit against a dark background. This is called "Rembrandt light" after teh Dutch master painter Rembrandt van Rijn, from the 17th century. He is from my hometown Amsterdam. See here for an example: 

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8

Photos 1 to 6 were all with an open flash, which gives hard, unmodified light. This can be good, if you want strong prominent shadows. A disadvantage of hard light is that it brings out all skin blemishes. This can be used to your advantage for a character study of an old person where you do want to show the wrinkles clearly. Priscillar has beautiful skin, so the hard light has no wrinkles or pimples to bring out. But for many people, soft light is nicer. In photo 8 I added a soft box to the flash. This makes the flash big, and consequently the light soft. The effect is softer and sweeter, compare with photo 3.

9

In photo 9, I added a large white reflector opposite the light. You see how the shadows are opened up, but they are still there to provide modeling. This is a standard way to bring out the model's beauty. For fashion photos, model photography, or editorial portraits it is a bit standard and commercial. It can also depend on the style of the client you are working for. See how photo 4 and 7, with large shadows, direct your view more to her eye, and give you more incentive to reflect on her thoughts or personality.

10

Here is another way of showing her beauty: I turned her face straight to the camera, soft box straight above the camera and a reflector under her chin, just outside the photo. It opens up the shadows. this is often very flattering for female models.

Portrait lighting: one light

1

Many photographers use complex set-ups with many lights. This can give spectacular results. But equally spectacular –different- results can be made with just one light. And it is an interesting challenge, as well as a very practical skill, to make good and interesting light with one light.

I will show some possibilities for portraits.

The placement of the light determines where the shadows fall. When the light is high the shadows fall below, when the light is on the left the shadows fall on the right. When the light is close to the lens, the shadows are small, when the light is at a wide angle to the lens, the shadows are big.

I start with an open flash, with no light modifier. This gives hard light, because the light source is small. Hard light gives very strong shadows, so it gives a clear idea of what the placement of the flash is doing for the photo.

Model Priscillar volunteered for these photos, thank you Priscillar.

2

In photo 1, we see on camera flash. This is rarely successful portrait lighting. It gives flat lighting with extremely small shadows. Because the camera was tilted to portrait format the flash is on the left side and that puts the shadow on the right hand side.

In photo 2, I put the flash on a stand above the camera,very slightly to the right, to keep the stand out of the picture. You see a larger shadow under the chin and elbow. Notice how moving the flash away from the camera gives a much more natural look than on camera flash. The shadows show the shape of the face and the texture of the shirt much better. The most natural light source, the sun, is usually above us.

3

In photo 3, I lowered the flash again to eye level, and moved it to the right. This gives small shadows to the left of the nose and cheek.

4

In photo 4, I moved the stand further to the side, showing bigger shadows at the nose and cheek.

5

In photo 5, I moved the light all the way to the side, making half the face lit and half the face in the shadow. This is clearly a special effect that you don't use in a standard commercial portrait, but for an artistic effect it can work. The dark side of the face is slightly lit by light that bounces off the walls of the room. To make it pure black, you would have to put a black curtain or something similar next to the dark side of the face to block any light reaching it. Notice that the angle of the light is so acute that there is very little light on the background. It is the same white wall as in the other photos, but since it is not lit, it comes out dark.

6

In photo 6, I placed a gold reflector to the dark side of Priscillar, giving light to the shadow side of the face. The placement of the shadow is the same as in the previous photo, but the reflector opens up the shadow so we see more detail. The yellowish colour comes from the gold reflector, if you want neutral colour you use a white or silver reflector.

All these photos were done with the face of the model (more or less) straight to the camera. Later we will look at the possibilities when you turn the face at an angle.

I encourage all photographers to make a lot of these test photos, so you get to know your equipment, your studio, and what light does for different faces. Some people have a very round face, some have a slim face, some have deep eye sockets, others have shallower eye sockets. Also, many people have one side of the face looking better than the other. This can be a consideration to turn the face one side or the other.

Once you have decided on the light (with a number of test photos), you communicate with the model to get the best pose and expression. Here you see me showing model Stella how I would like her to pose. Behind her you see the gold reflector we used for the photo of Priscilla. Top left you see the umbrella I used to light Stella.

 The photo of Stella, using one light. In this case I used it with a silver umbrella, on the right above the model. You see the position of the light from the shadows under her cheek and bottom, and from the catch-lights in her eyes. To learn about lighting, it is a good idea to reverse engineer photos you like. Reverse engineering means: from the look of the photo, you deduce how the lighting was done, where the lights were placed. The catch-lights in the eyes are a great help in this.

Tigris video and Chechamba's music adventures

still from the Tigris video

Finally I am putting the final touch on the video for Tigris’ song Strip Song. It took a while, I had to learn a lot and by now I am a much better videographer than I was when I started it.

Next week Tigris launches a new single, so the video release will have to wait at least a few weeks, let’s keep you in anticipation.

Anyway, the last filming I did was of musicians. It took a  bit of doing to find the people who could and wanted to do it. So when I got stuck, I went to meet my old friend Wyndham Chechamba, the grand old man of Malawian Music. He teaches, and yes, we could film them at the music school!

While we were at it he taught me song Congolese guitar work, which is great. And he told me of his adventures with Congolese music: in the 1960s (that’s a while ago) He went to Kitwe in Zambia. The copper belt was even then a hive of activity, and the mine workers want entertainment. It is so close to the Congolese border that Congolese music is very popular there.

Chechamba

A Congolese band went to a bar owner to ask for work. OK< the man wanted music in his bar, so let’s hear what you can do. Well, the musicians knew how to play, but they had no instruments. So for the audition they borrowed the equipment of another band that was playing further up the strip in Kitwe. The bar owner liked the music, and here was the deal: the bar owner buys a full set of equipment, the band plays for food and lodging, and at the end of the contract the musicians own their own instruments. OK, fine. But at that time Congolese rumba music was most popular and that sounds best with horn players. And there were no Congolese horn players available. That’s where Chechamba came in: he played great saxophone even back then (he plays pretty much every instrument that you and I have heard!) so he joined the band. And for three years he played rumba music in Kitwe. Then the band went back to Congo. But there it was dangerous as it is now, so Chechamba opted to go back to Malawi. Loaded with experience in great Congolese rumba music.

Now he plays keyboards on the Tigris video, and his friends/colleagues/students play the other instruments. In the video that is, the soundtrack was done before I started.

Wedding portrait: don’t take it from me.

Wedding portrait: don’t take it from me. Take it from the Great Master, Jan van Eyck

Many photographers photograph weddings. But the wedding portrait was not invented with photography, it was centuries older than that. Check this link  out, this is a masterpiece that we all can learn from. In 1434 Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami got married. These were wealthy people who could afford to hire the best painter of the time to do their wedding portrait. They chose Jan van Eyck. The couple were Italians, but they lived in Ghent, in what is now Belgium. Jan van Eyck himself was witness to the marriage as we can see from his beautiful graffiti on the wall behind the couple: “Jan de Eyck fuit hic” Jan van Eyck was here in 1434. First you’d think it is a realistic rendering of a couple who just got married. By the way: the artists in those days had just learnt to do perspective this realistically, because they had cameras. Only: they had no film to make a photograph, they put paper on the ground glass and traced the lines. That’s how they discovered perspective, and started to do very realistic anatomy. Check how the painter rendered the texture of the cloth, the fur the wood, the skin. All of it is lifelike, like a photograph. See how the light flows from a window on the left, how the shadows give shape to every object in the painting. The light diminishes to the back. He used a relatively new technique of oil paint, that enabled this.

There is much more going on than just a realistic rendering of the couple, though. Behind the couple, there is a mirror, showing two people. (link) They are the witnesses to the marriage, one of them possibly the painter himself. With the walls behind and to the sides, this is an intimate family scene.

On top of this, there is a lot of symbolism happening here, symbolism was very common in paintings of this period. The dog stands for fidelity, the apples on the left behind the couple refer to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Around the mirror (link) there are ten miniature paintings of the life of Jesus, his passion, his death, the salvation of people. The broom next to the mirror refers to domestic care, the domain of the wife. The little statue above the chair just above the brides hand is of St Margaret, patron of pregnant women and mothers. The brides other hand is on her belly, signifying the power of motherhood. The single lighted candle in the chandelier above signifies either the single all seeing eye of God, or the unity of marriage.

A lot of planning goes into this type of portrait, all of us photographers, we can learn from the Great Masters of the past.