Experimenting with light

My friend Nathan agreed to be my sitter for this exercise and I spent over an hour experimenting with various light settings at my home studio.

1. A spot light is placed to the right of the camera. The sitter is positioned 45 degrees to the camera and is facing the key light. This set up gives strong deep shadows on the left side. It could be quite dramatic.

 2.Two softboxes are positioned on both sides of the subject. This set up gives good overall even light for the scene. As an option, a stronger spot light might be used on one side to create some soft shadows.

3. As in the set up 1 but with an additional fill light positioned to the left. This set up still creates a lot of shadows on the left hand side of the subject.

 4. The main (key) light is moved from the right hand side of the subject closer to the camera. It now illuminates the short side of the face and creates a Rembrandt effect (a triangular patch of light just beneath the eye). A fill in light is to the left of the camera.

5. Both lights are set to a higher f-stop. The key light is positioned at a higher angle to the subject.

 Following the practice session I was able to experiment a bit more with my lights. I am including a selection of images that in my view worked quite well.

 An example of rim lighting set up.

 A two light set up with a background light positioned on the floor.

 The main light is to the left of the camera with the background light on the floor.

An example of butterfly lighting effect.