Reverse Engineering Portrait Lighting - It's All In The Eyes!
If you're getting into studio photography, you should be checking out catchlights for lighting tips!
"Catchlights" are the reflections in the eyes of your subject. They're a great way of analyzing the lighting technique used in a portrait. With studio shots it's usually more obvious, whereas outdoor shots can have rather more vague catchlights.
Look closely at the reflections in the eyes of my subject here...
Zooming in you can see the reflection of me in front of a large octabox. One big light did the trick for that shot.
In this shot you can see from the reflections that I used "clamshell" lighting as I mentioned in my previous post.
Zooming in, it's clear the fill light was not a modified strobe, but a reflector. Indeed, an old reflector with a hole in the middle!
With practice, you can quickly analyze the lighting technique of any photo, mainly by observing the catchlights in the eyes.
Ringlight:
Clamshell - Beauty dish & reflector:
Clamshell - Large modifier, with reflector (and rim lights)
Thanks for stopping by. Hopefully you found this helpful. If you have any questions or comments, please rock away in the comment section.
I want to lick all of these people.
bahaha
I love how you specified the lighting. Thank you for sharing :)
Thanks for your comment!
Amazing shots and models.
You are SOO good!! i wish you could take some of me
You're too kind. I'm listening to your podcast right now by the way! Your dog is snoring!
yes he is always snoring, farting and making funny noises!! let me know what you thought of the podcast!
This is honestly really interesting, and that is coming from someone whom usually isn't much into photography.Thanks for the share!
Cheers. It's cool innit?! I remember the first time I discovered this trick.
This post has been ranked within the top 80 most undervalued posts in the first half of Jun 07. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $18.03 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jun 07 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
Ahhh cheers