Monday 19 March 2012

Workshop 1 - Simple Portraits -Experimenting with Rembrandt and Hollywood Lighting

Rembrandt Lighting

 

 Here are some examples of Rembrandt lighting:

 

Image Sources: 

In our Studio class's first workshop we looked at two different lighting techniques; Rembrandt and Hollywood. Rembrandt lighting  is a lighting technique that is used in studio portrait photography. The Rembrandt lighting style is recognized by the triangle of light (chiaroscuro) that falls under the subject's eye on the dark  side of their face. The name derives from the Dutch artist Rembrandt who used this type of lighting in his paintings.
Here are some photographs I took in the studio during the workshop trying to achieve the Rembrandt lighting style. I had a Tungsten light to the right of the model and a reflector on her left to create these shots:


Hollywood Lighting   

Some examples of Hollywood Lighting:

Image Sources:

Hollywood lighting is something different all together, I really admire what the lighting does to the mood of the portrait. Its soft, lovely and womanly which is what I mostly want out of portraits (especially my own).
The main technique to Hollywood lighting is that you have a light directly above the model, high and pointed down, this gives you a shadow under the model's nose, often referred to as a butterfly shadow. 

Using the Soft box in the studio I tried to create the Hollywood effect to this portrait of KiKi:

 

I don't believe this portrait was very successful, perhaps it would look better if I played with it in Photoshop but I went straight from camera to computer after the shoot. 

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