Starving Artist's Guide to Studio Portraitures: Double Side Light

The American

There are two things in commercial photography that I consider to be of primal importance: Coolness and Sexyness (C&S).

What you see above is actually yours truly and thus we face our first problem. I ain't cool nor sexy. So how do to make me C&S? put a gun in my hand, slick back the hair, wear some cowboy's shirt, put some sunglasses and voila (ok that did sound terribly cliché but whatever). Actually the most important part of C&S is lighting and nothing scream sexy-killer-badassness as some hot (bright) side lights.

Here's the setup.















Light A and B: in this setup, I consider these our main lights as they are used to define and shape the picture. They are small Sunpak 383 shots against two small reflective white umbrellas that gives us a wide but focused beam of light. They are placed high enough to light the sides of the face but also the hair. Below you can see how they look while the model (Me!) is looking straight at the camera. I also have to mention that I was in a white room with a lot of the spills bouncing around. Were I in a black room, the front of my face would have been much darker.



















There's a quite a bit of smoke in the air as I was burning a cigar to get some smoke for later uses.

Light C: this is an Alienbee 800 with a 20 degree gridspot. Now don't get too excited if you don't have a gridspot. This light is only there as a fill and powered very low. In a pinch you could substitute it with a white bounce card or a DIY light panel.

This is the final picture pre-photoshop.



















Incidentally, C&S is enhanced by adding some political or social messages. Actually it's not but as this was for a class and teachers don't usually appreciate C&S for C&S' sake.