Achieving the right lighting setup for the look you're going for is essential to studio portrait work. At the heart of this are light modifiers. As the term suggests, they are used to shape, direct, increase, or soften the output of your light sources so you get the mood that you want for your shots.
There's no shortcut to professional lighting, but today's cheat sheet makes a great visual guide for what each light modifier does. . thephoblographer.com
Profoto has been making pretty great flashes and strobes for a long time now. Their reputation for making lighting gear with high build qualities and great output precedes them. However, this means that Profoto lights are Significantly more expensive than similar lights from the likes of Westcott, Flashpoint, and Godox.
"My personal trick to keep me on track was to use Facebook as a tool for accountability. " states photographer Claudia Paul about her Wednesday Portraits series. "I publicly announced the project and the goal to post a new portrait every Wednesday.
Lighting is one of the most important but also challenging stuff to master for studio portrait work. Apart from setting the mood, feel, and emphasis of a portrait, it also opens up photographers to various creative techniques.
So, you've decided to shoot some portraits in the studio, complete with advanced lighting setup. Apart from working out the lighting techniques to use, you will also most likely have to choose a light modifier to get the ideal lighting output for your shots.
One of the first lessons we learn when it comes to portrait photography is to make sure that the eyes of our subjects are in focus. To take things up a notch and make your snaps even more powerful and striking, you can add this simple trick to your portrait photography arsenal: use a catchlight to illuminate the eyes of your subject.
Still in the dark when it comes to working with different kinds of lighting for portrait photography? Then, we've got just the right stuff to inspire and enlighten you. In his quick video, Sawyer Hartman brings us to his shoot with leading entertainment and fashion photographer Michael Muller, who gives us an idea on how he works with lighting to get stunning portraits.