Jay: The five portrait lighting positions are the key to all light on set.
So if you don't know what they are or you need a refresher, stick around.
Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan.Today on Slanted Lens, we're gonna cover the five basic portrait
lighting positions.
If you already know these, you're gonna wanna stick around as a refresher course.
If you don't know them, this becomes a foundation for all lighting situations.
It really, truly does.
So I've got Keanu Barbieri [SP] over here with me.
You could follow her at...
Keana: Instagram @oxsygin.
Jay: Instagram @oxsygin.
So, check that out.
She's gonna be here.
She's kind enough to sit and allow me to work lighting positions on her in place.
That sounds stupid, doesn't it?
We're gonna bring this light around, got an overhead camera that'll show us where we move
this light.
I'm gonna try to talk about the, really, subtleties of each of these positions because even though
they seem pretty simple and pretty straightforward, there are some real subtleties on what make
these work.
These lighting positions are tried and true.
They are the things that people have used forever.
It also gives you an idea of where to put your light when you're beginning to light
a room or something.
Does not mean that your light has to stay a certain hardness or softness.
You can do whatever you want with it, which gives you infinite number of possibilities
as you apply these five positions.
You can do so many different things with them to make them interesting.
So, learn these positions, learn how to apply them.
They're gonna become the foundation for most of the lighting decisions that you're going
to make.
So let's take a look at a Rembrandt.
Rembrandt truly liked that dark shadow, and as he would look at light coming through a
window or whatever light source he was using, he started to see that the nose naturally
makes a triangle on a person's face.
First off, this Rembrandt here, it's way too low.
So this light's gotta go up, up, up, up, up.
When I get this light in the right position, her nose closes the loop that's underneath
her chin here so her chin shadow, this nose shadow, breaks into that chin shadow and creates
a triangle.
That's a true Rembrandt, a very pretty light.
Now, I can take and fill this, just a little bit of light.
I can fill this.
I can make this a very flat Rembrandt, you know?
I can pull it out and make it kind of shadowy or we can just let it really be deep.
It really depends on what you wanna do.
So you have all the options in the world.
I can fill this from underneath if I want to favor opening up the shadow under her chin.
I can really do whatever I want.
If I fill it from behind, I can almost take my Rembrandt and start to get myself a little
bit of hair light on her.
So it becomes an easy transition into other different kinds of lighting, but a Rembrandt
becomes our first one.
The number one lighting position is our Rembrandt.
Now, again, she's turned away from the light.
Her shoulders are turned to the light but her head is turned back to the camera, but
now that gives me the opportunity to create what's called a split light.
A split light is simply splitting the face right down the center.
So I'm gonna bring this light way around.
I'm gonna use my Rocky Mountain leg here with my Kupo stand.
Whoop, we're falling apart over here.
The reason I like Octodomes versus square boxes is very, very simple and that's just
simply I like the round highlight in the eye.
That's why I like them and I think they're a great choice.
A square box is square, a round is round, feels more like lighting sources that we see.
It looks right in the eye.
So there's our split light.
We've moved the light way around to the side and then now the light just simply does exactly
that.
It splits the face, highlight, shadow.
There's no bleed of the light around onto the side of the cheek, we're still looking
into the shadow side of the face.
If she turns her face into the light now and there comes a Rembrandt.
Chin down a little bit, there you go.
Now, look back and come back this way here.
So we're going from a Rembrandt and to that split light.
So those two transition pretty easily.
Split light to Rembrandt to a broad light, very easy to kinda transition between those
three lights.
When you get this in the right position, they look fabulous.
So, again, I can open this up the side of her face, gives me the ability to really open
that up.
And if we wanna flatten it out, I can really get in there and flatten it out as well.
Again, I can try to do something that opens up a little bit of her hair and gives us something
to look at there.
So there's a split light.
Now, if we simply take her and turn her legs away from the light, and now she's moved her
position, looking away from the light, she looks back into the camera now, we've taken
that split light and it's turned into a broad light.
We're basically looking at the broad lit side of her face through the camera.
The camera's looking at the side of the face that's lit.
It's a position that is used all the time.
I don't think it's the most interesting.
I like to look into the shadow side a little more than I do the broad side, but it's certainly
a position that looks very nice.
If I fill this correctly, this broad light can be very pretty.
We push in with this, we get just this open kind of lit.
It's like really bright highlights on the broad side of her face and then a nice open
look on the shadow side when you push this card way in.
Just let it really open up and fill.
Again, we can come up in the back, try to get a little light on her hair or we can even
come in underneath, if we want, which changes the look a little bit.
And there's a broad light.
You see the broad light used all the time.
It's a very, very common light but probably not as much as a Rembrandt or a split.
Now, we're gonna go to what's called a butterfly or a Paramount light.
Why is it called a butterfly or Paramount light?
Well, it's called a Paramount light because back in the '20s and '30s, the light, a lot
of the actresses wanted to have a Paramount, which is a high light overhead that gives
us a little kind of butterfly underneath the nose, that's why it's called a butterfly light.
A lot of actresses had this in their contract.
They couldn't be photographed unless it was with a butterfly light.
So a butterfly light is very easy.
I'm gonna take my light, I'm gonna move it all the way around.
I'm gonna slide it right next to my camera here and I'm gonna get Keana to look right
back into the camera.
There's my butterfly light.
This is a beautiful light for women especially, because what we get is we have a high light,
runs the nose, drops this beautiful shadow underneath the nose and sinks the cheeks.
We get a little bit of shadow on each side of the cheek.
It's a very common light to use with women.
It just looks really pretty.
I mean, looks great on men as well but it looks great, especially beautiful on women
because of the cheeks and the cheekbones.
If I'm in a hurry, if I'm in a tight situation, I need to light fast, I've got a group of
people, throw the light up next to the camera, get it up high and get in that butterfly position
and it looks really good.
It's a great go-to light in a hurry.
When you start to get the light to the side, you got a group, becomes very difficult to
get it to be even.
You've gotta feather it and just work with it a little more.
But at the camera, high, you get an easy butterfly light with someone and it works out really
simple.
If I take this light now and I drop it down lower, I can almost flatten her face right
out because I'm right above the camera.
It's not my favorite place.
I don't think that works as well as it can, but it's interesting.
I think a butterfly light is nicer when you get it up.
Get it up a little higher, start to see that shadow develop underneath her nose, and that's
a prettier light.
Now, I'm gonna take and just take my fill card and the best place for this now is to
come in from underneath.
I'm gonna reflect that light back in.
I'm gonna open up the shadow under her chin, under her nose.
That's the hardest place, is the chin shadow.
It becomes very deep in this.
That's why some people do what's called a clamshell lighting.
You got a light up in a butterfly position and you throw a soft box below, it just opens
up the shadows.
You put that on a lower setting, it opens up the shadows beneath the chin, underneath
the nose and just kind of flattens things out a little bit but looks very, very nice.
You see clamshell lighting all the time.
But this acts kind of like a clamshell light, in that it's bouncing back in.
Clamshell is just simply two soft boxes.
You look in her eye, you can see that round catch light in her eye.
That gives a sense that she's alive and not dead, so you want that catch light.
So this Octodome has gotta be up a little bit to give us that nice shadow.
Too low is too flat, too high starts to deepen her eyes and that nose shadow starts to drop
way onto her chin.
We don't want that.
But now, let's go to the last one.
It's called a loop light.
It's a loop light because it doesn't close the loop on to the chin to become a Rembrandt.
It's a loop that just kind of dies into the cheek.
Don't want it straight across.
So if I bring this around for a loop light, I'm coming all the way around here now.
And I can loop this from either side, it doesn't have to be here or there, up or down, in or
out, in a box with a fox.
So I can do a loop light from this side but because of this white wall, it's just killing
it.
You don't see it very well.
So I'm gonna take this back around to the loop position.
Difference between a loop and a Rembrandt is the loop light's gonna be a kind of in
between the two and it's gonna be a tiny bit lower.
So when this light's too low, this is not a loop light, even though I've got a shadow
coming off and somebody will say, "Oh, well that's a loop there," no, that's just a broad
deep shadow along the side of her nose and has no interest at all.
So bring this up a little higher and around a little bit here to the front.
She has such a petite nose.
We don't see a really heavy loop light on her face.
I'm gonna bring this up just a little bit.
Now we see this loop's starting to develop on the side of her nose there.
It gives us a nice bridge line, shadow line on her nose, a nice loop off to the side but
doesn't close it, doesn't turn it into a Rembrandt.
We still see a highlight in there, so that loop just kinda starts to dive into her nose
and into her cheek.
So, again, very easy to fill this.
Make it as flat as we want and open.
It's fascinating because every single face is different.
You think, "Oh, that person looks great.
I look great with this."
It's like, they don't.
It just, I mean, they may or they may not but it depends on the size of their nose,
it depends on the way their cheekbones are, depends on how sunken in their cheeks are.
Every single thing is gonna be a little bit different.
So, as you're lighting a person, look at their face, think about the different portrait positions,
position it, experiment a little bit, height, just keep moving around and experimenting.
Don't get yourself locked into, "Well, I threw the light up in this position so it's got
to be there."
Move it around a little bit.
When you start to learn where to put them, you'll be able to predict that a lot easier.
You'll get it in the right place, it'll come a lot quicker and you'll be able to see it
a lot easier.
So, in every single one of these lighting positions, we're only using one light, that's
the key light and using that and putting it in the different lighting positions and that
becomes a very successful experience.
It's a key light with a fill card.
So these are really one light solutions, one light solutions to give you the ability to
give you a nice light and with a single light.
You start making decisions with these positions about the person's face and what you want
to portray.
If I want a person to look very good and to be open, then I'll probably go to a butterfly
with a fill card and really soften that out so it looks really open and soft and pretty.
Also, the size of the source is gonna make a huge difference.
This is a pretty small source.
A larger source is going to make this Rembrandt wrap more.
So the light's gonna see into the Rembrandt more and the shadow side is gonna be filled
a little more than it is.
So, by adding a large source, this Rembrandt can be even...it can be opened on the shadow
side.
By adding a smaller source, you can make this Rembrandt even harder.
If I take this box off, which is really easy to do...
You gotta be kidding me.
I knew how that worked.
So there's a Rembrandt in a hard light.
This is a hard directional light.
You can see it much easier.
The triangle is very easy to see there.
This is also very easy to fill, though.
The difference between hard and soft light is simply the transition between shadow and
highlight.
When your highlight to shadow is very quick, it's a hard light.
If your highlight to shadow is very slow, in that there's a gradation, slowly becomes
from highlight into shadow, that's a softer light.
So, in this case, we have a very fast transition.
We put this in here and it really flattens out her face, gives us a nice look at that
Rembrandt.
You can see all these lighting positions with that much easier because there's our Rembrandt,
we go into a split down to a loop light.
See that really strong loop there?
So there we go, we can fill that in.
There we go and then we go to our butterfly.
So there's our butterfly in harder light.
A little easier to see.
See the hard shadow dropping underneath the nose?
Really easy to fill in because we throw this in, opens up her chin, opens up her nose.
Now back for a broad light, which we forgot about.
There's our broad light from the side.
You look into the broad side as she turns away from the camera.
So, it's interesting because look at the eyelashes on her, you see her eyelashes are very strong
on her nose line there, that's just because this is such a hard light.
You see right down the shadow of the eyelashes, which is really interesting.
So there you go, the five portrait positions.
Use them as a starting, a kind of a jumping-off point.
When you start to set your light, gives you an idea where to set it, how to make the face
look good and then start to fill it and augment it.
Now, this is just a single light setup here.
we could take this so much further if we start to add a rim light and add a light on the
background.
There's so many things we can do, but that gives you a basis to get out there and start
lighting.
So, put some images up on our Facebook group.
Show the different positions, call them out, show them to your friends so that we all can
see what you're doing.
We want to hear from you, so go over that Facebook group, follow us on The Slanted Lens
and keep those cameras rolling, keep on clicking.
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Jay: To The Slanted Lens.
I was off balance.