Lessons

Lesson Info

Dramatic Portrait Lighting

All right, so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to do ah bunch of I'm just going to show you a bunch of different things that would do for lighting ah male athlete or maybe getting some kind of creepier more domineering lighting because I've done a lot of pretty you know, a lot of high keys let's go for a little bit more dramatic but for portrait so I am going to use barn doors because that's my favorite go to to give the highlights on the side of the body and then we're going to break some rules with that main light so I've got to gather a few more things over here but let me get my my, uh main light so I'm gonna bring you this way okay? So we use it for the first one so we'll have to get that led to high perfectly straightforward. All right, let's, check my barn doors and becks, can I have the reflector as well? Okay. And is this lake honor just the map the mine like yourself cool good for effect. S so what I'm gonna do is break a rule and put a light directly over his head the great ov...

er his head so there's not really any catch late in his eyes but it will look really dramatic and I mean grab my other lens and I just need the center one so what we have is you have to back barn doors there's no grids on those back lights and I have a beauty dish overhead with the grid and so if you look at it you can't quite tell in this light but there are no catch lights in his eyes and that light is from overhead okay, so it would be really dark does that one have you lean forward a little and chin down good and I you're going to see me make a bunch of mistakes and tweet till it looks right I think that's all I can tell you so I've got beated us above barn doors and I'm gonna take a silver reflector to try to put catch lights back into his eye so it's still really dark and creepy but you've got that reflector to put that it's it's the bad ass face that's what it is okay yeah like the game face all right, so I may uh well let's just test this let's just give it a test here. Can I have one reading? May I might is what's tested here? Um I need my trigger sexy max there. Thank you. Oh, I need the other trigger for here so I guess I used different triggers for different ones and this one sounds like it's the the one with the little pointy thing on top it is a little little point phantoms yeah, well that's my could exist in that maybe like oh you look better that way right now on getting um the reason that I like this for photographing an athlete so you can see right now see how it shows big muscles and clavicles light overhead and put shadow on the face so let's try this test it's true that stressing around nine okay, good night should put your chin way way down I'm turned this to black and white because that's what I would shoot as okay take a look at black and white here we go take a look in one tweak it a little bit all right? I'm gonna have you can you bring it moreover top this way instead of from behind okay and an angle it less on his shoulders and more towards this way if you can okay and then becky, can you grab me another light just like this and looking better looks head up a little bit, okay? All right, closer keep darken it down and I look really mad right now. Those bank legs I need to be pointed on him more because I'm missing those ville so are they firing? Okay, let me get a test say yep, so bring them a little bit closer and I need those room lights oh yeah, we moved him so he's it's missing okay there's such little a little fine lines that I had him sitting back it was illuminating him when I sat him forward so you could look creepy it totally misses him now because it's that fine of a line perfect perfect orbit all right sleeping again good okay not shin down little good perfect right there and can you bring this in and turn them up a little bit? I need brighter highlights what are they currently at cape with them two seven perfect seven same thing and that one backs kick it if you hold it down in a bowl full stop this it's okay second seven seven one all right getting better alright and can you pull those bat lates back? I'm looking okay highlights on the snow was going to shown us is that going to do it kind of tweak it good uh just just a little bit weird davis perfect and angle it back towards him and over that come back into the background backs just lift it up there you go perfect and point it right at him great right there. Not shin down good okay, you know yeah make interest there you go it's good. That was a good face like the face and say looming lan going so they did some going for like man the muscle face I like it when you do one more okay so now what I'm going to do this is my manly tough muscle face okay, now I'm going to dio manly tough muscle face is I'm going to add a light from below and do clam shell like the wrong way on purpose I'm gonna put a light from below that he's looking into so it is what we usually call monster light except for it makes him look tough well this is monster late without the light in the front it's just the reflector soto look very tough big muscles okay that's fun yeah so gonna move this all right and just put it in wherever thank you and I might use my human light stands possibly perfect was angled at his face perfect okay, great and what's that power at k that's justice real quick and chin down a little look into that late okay, now pump it up a little bit to five good and not shin down and you go and I want that kind of muscle arms good we go muscle arms looks good take a look here there we go perfect for me perfect. Okay, I know you like I know you like them okay? Good right he's like yeah okay, so all right, so here's what we have going on here for like something different you've got the light overhead which gives him hair light but more importantly, what it's doing is it's lighting over the muscles because if I like muscles flat on it doesn't give them contour and I'm trying to make them show up and have definition so if you look at these shadows here all those shadows are from the fact that we have a light overhead but then we need some light on his face but if I like from the front with a large light source it flattens everything out so it defeats the point so right now I have a silver dish with a ten degree grid so when we angle it up now it just lights his face so he has some light on his face and the background lights give definition on the muscles um and also on his hair so something like that is if I were going for bodybuilder where rays you know weightlifting champion or a basketball player or something like that would have really beautiful physique I would like something like that and you know you can look away and you don't have to light from above um but that's what helps give some of that physique okay so let me see if there's any questions on that and we can take some readings if you don't mind okay? Questions yes or no questions you guys have any questions right now? No, I guess there slater photog and wanda k bacon wanted to know if you would consider doing a standing shot to emphasize his muscles more or you know what it is that something you'd be interested in doing our would you normally do that we're going to do something like that next okay perfect yeah and this and you can do that it was a so I know the practical reason women and sit down because we're putting out light over his head and I was just like a little scared of it really really high up above his head so I thought was a little safer for more stability laura that's it but if you have like really good c stands and it's all weighted correctly you're okay and you have somebody standing right next to it the whole time for sure let's take a reading which one you want to do first okay relays eighteen move it a little bit more there pretty close and I would say it's probably like fourteen we were a little more to the right yeah he says he says ten uh looks a little brighter it's like really really narrow so he's got to get it just right it's normally and you turn off the overhead lights you can actually see where it is with these kind of mix it and make a little harder oh that one very okay it's closer so I would say it's probably closer to fourteen let's do overhead light perfect they're too short again more perfect study too and then let's do that light from below eighteen okay those are numbers they were working out and I was shooting at fourteen no shooting of fourteen there. Okay, so you do one more shot of him, and then we're going to creative and we'll get it done in the half hour. So what have you said? Besides, you don't get whacked, right? Good plan face is gonna be full length, and I'm going to use in this set up one of my favorite lights that haven't gotten to show you guys yet, which is a tell a zoom reflector. So the telephone reflector is like those reflectors, but deeper, the more focused one. So we're going to use that. I just want to give you an idea this is going to have no grid on it, and I want to show you how it gives you a little a little more focused, and I use this all the time with athletes because it's got a ton of contrast, it is a very, very focused, like, a ton of contrast, so it looks manly and tough, which is what we're going for here, and we could just take the view dish off that you seem to be too shall happen. Whatever works. Okay, um and so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to do my usual setup where I have to, um, to room lights okay, I'm going to use to barn doors and then on the face I'm going to use that telephone reflect I want to show you what it looks like and then we're going to finish up with super creative and random okay, perfect and I'm not going to use this anymore someone unplug it while we're doing that um and I wanted to make a point of the fact that a lot of the cool lighting is you just ignore rules you know what I mean? Blown out highlights seven lights the hairs blown out here you're lighting from below you have minutes collating is breaking the rules is just doing so successfully all right so how heavy stand here can you see already? How bright that lettuce how focused it is very focused and very, very bright it's not that I don't have you stand front and center good so I'm looking for those room lights and then bring it this way switch my lenses I'm going to do a full medium length like that is that kind of women your picture is that it's the court? Okay, perfect. All right awesome good and we bring it over just a little bit I'm gonna look for a kind of rembrandt on his face all right mostly muscle pose is here perfect. Okay, that was good face do I like that? And we see a little bit of rembrandt honest face keep going look straight at me good come back this way but this way keep coming in this way good perfect closer all right no watch what you'll see you'll see a lot more focused I'm gonna mind if I move this a little heavy turn this light way down because this light the way it works it's going to focus everything is gonna be really bright so right now I like the direction but it's too spread out so what I can do lower it down a little okay? And I'm gonna move this light in okay? Turn away down there just really really low. All right? So it's gonna give me a lot of shape and I am too short someone has don't want angle is down as much from england speak area okay, go raise it back up again perfect. Okay, so we'll get a little bit more focus on the body. Light's still coming from above. Perfect. Good. Okay, so let's, take a reading real quick. All right? I'll give you a little test it's gonna be crazy, right? Let's take a look. It's gonna be very brave transit blind you yeah, disclosure unionized lift muscle for muscle the school okay, keep we'd keep turned down a little bit we're going to aim for ah, we're going right now is that twenty eight okay and I have this light turned way down how perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Okay, so I'm gonna bump up the other lights for me were the other two keep it up two eight o for me for the other two right? So I'm going to shoot at f twenty two testis good, extremely real quick or testing good. All right, so muscle muscle shapes good look ahead a little bit this way just a little bit with your chin a little bit more right there looking for rembrandt. Good. All right, so I'll give you a couple tweaks that I would have here the sea and a second as loans. Okay, so this is, like really showing physique and muscles? Um I might want a little more spread down the body so you can open this up a little bit. I see myself a little bit more spread same thing got a little less closing literate, more good. Write something like that while looking at satellite. I can even see it blinds you he's like, yes, it does. I'm sure. Ok, same thing they were posed like that and your head back just this way just a little bit and lean towards me a tiny bit look and then take one half step back, have it spread out his body a little bit more perfect so much one step enough. Everyone caught that when he was standing there, it's raking down his body. And so it's really focus on his face. He took a half step back. It's a different angle. So it hits a lot more. So, it's gonna be a totally different picture from this angle. Okay? I like that one. Got a little bit more spread. So this is what I'd go for. We'll take those readings and then we'll move on. You see this still raking down the body, which gives muscles and then super right highlights. Just carve him out. You look great. Thank you very much for doing that. But I mean, light twenty five. I was shooting at twenty two, but it's a bright highlight in black and white school. Okay, hoops hit the wrong button. Twenty eight. And then now this actually addresses the question. Someone asking though it was, um twenty eight, twenty five, twenty two says the question someone's asked me once if you can't get your aperture down right now for these packs these specific ones that's us far down. Is this specific? One goes this light is that its lowest power and its f twenty five, because that's, what that light does so that's, why would that's what that light does it's crazy? It focuses it. So what you would want to do is add a grid to credit, cut down on light, because you don't have to change the angle, because that's actually going to change with the light. Does, um, use a pact that can go down lower. But the reason those back lights are so bright as I had to lift them all up, it had to match them. So I had to bring them above the twenty five to twenty eight, that that was around there, so they would look the same crispness. So it's, why they're all so high, is because I can get that one any lower. And so I shot at twenty two.