Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Lighting Techniques of the Portrait Masters


I was recently teaching Studio Lighting at Gulf Photo Plus in Dubai a few weeks ago with other PPSOP instructors and had the opportunity to work with the model Lenka. The goal of the workshop is similar to my online class here, to teach about learning to see light and sculpting your subjects with light.

There is not much difference between what a sculptor does in their art and a photographer using light. The sculptor uses tools to create a 3 dimensional work of art while the photographer uses light to sculpt their subject to appear 3-dimensional in a 2-dimensional medium.

For Lenka, I used a beauty lighting technique called over/under with one light above and the other under to create a key light and a fill light. This is a very nice way for photographing woman in a soft and flat light manner as it hides skin imperfections, blemishes, and wrinkles. In this image I then went further using skin softening and dream glow techniques to work on the eyes, nose, and mouth. These techniques and many more are in my class: Lighting Techniques of the Portrait Masters.

Charlie Borland
www.borlandphoto.com
Blog: www.thecommercialphotographer.net