Lighting P3(c)

When you set up three different sources of light in order to control shadows and balance the contrast is called three point lighting technique.  This technique is used in visual media such as video, film, still photography and computer-generated imaginary. 

Three point lighting consists of the key light, fill light and back light. 

Key light. This is the main light source. It is usually the strongest one and it shines directly on the subject. It is placed to one side of the camera/subject so that this side is well lit and the other side has some shadow. 

Fill light. The fill light provides balance to the key light by "filling in" the rest of the subject's face with softer light. It is a secondary light and it is placed on the opposite side of key light. 

Back light. The back light creates a flattering rim of light around the subject, separating him or her from the background. Sometimes the back light is called a rim light. It is placed behind the subject and lights it from the rear. 

Low key lighting. It's a style of lighting for photography that utilises predominantly dark tones to create a dramatic looking image. Where high key lighting seeks to over light the subject to the point of reduced contrast, low key lighting intensifies the contrast in an image through intensely reduced lighting. Low key lighting often uses only one key light, optionally controlled with a fill light or a simple reflector. 

Chiaroscuro lighting. Chiaroscuro technique often pertains to having one solitary light source and depicting stark contrasts between light and shadow. This style of lighting may seem minimalistic, but it yields very dramatic results. chiaroscuro often is effected with the use of "Rembrandt lighting". In more highly developed photographic processes, this technique also may be termed "ambient/natural lighting", although when done so for the effect, the look is artificial and not generally documentary in nature.

George Hurrell. 

George Hurrell (June 1, 1904 - May 17, 1992) was a photographer who made a significant contribution to the image of glamour presented by Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s. 

Hurrell made commercial portraits of the movie stars. He developed the lighting techniques and visual vocabulary that gave Hollywood stars their special aura of grace, mystery and perfection. 

Hurrell sculpted his subjects’ faces with light and shadow, using an easily movable boom light that he modeled on a boom microphone, to illuminate cheekbones and create shadows under the eyes and nose. “The most essential thing about my style was working with shadows to design the face instead of flooding it with light,” he said.

Richard Avedon.

Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 - October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. He is considered to be one of the most influential photographers of the late 20th century. After his death his obituary stated that he helped to define the image, style and culture for America for the last 50 years. 

Avedon studied photography with Alexey Brodovitch, the art director for the fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar, at his Design Laboratory at the New School for Social Research.  Then Avedon was hired as a photographer for the magazine. 

Natural lighting. 

Avedon was one of the first fashion photographer who natural lighting for commercial purposes. He started his fashion-art photographer career using only a large frosted glass window, facing south and an  overhead skylight to light his photographs. This produced a naturally occurring white background with enough light on the foreground to illuminate his subjects. 

Beauty lighting.

Avedon used a 1,500-watt Saltzman lamp-head with spun glass on an aluminium stand for a large amount of diffusion for his portraits. Avedon and his assistants kept the lamp just outside of the camera's field of view, which let heavy light fall on a subjects face and body. Because Avedon worked with fashion, he could highlight certain parts of a model's dress, blouse or jewellery by angling the light to highlight that part of her body.

Avedon's photographs are recognisable for being generally well lit and the signature white backdrop. Practicing minimalism in terms of no extra props or backgrounds and a minimal lighting system, Avedon let his portrait-subjects move as they wished and he moved the key lights, filters and natural lighting sources to fit their movements, not the other way around.

Yousuf Karsh.

Yousuf Karsh (December 21, 1908 - July 13, 2002) was a Canadian-Armenian portrait photographer. His portraits consisted of shadows playing with light. 

Yousuf lived with his uncle who was a photographer in Sherbrook in Quebec. He also attended school there and worked with his uncle who trained him in the photography field. 

He apprenticed himself in 1928 in the studio of John Garo, who was also a photographer based in Boston. John taught Yousuf to see and view his subjects in terms of shadow, light, and form. These three elements became a key feature in Yousuf’s practice. In his entire career, his concentration was on dramatic lighting which is the photographer’s cherished device.

He is one of the masters of the 20th century photography and his extraordinary and unique portfolio presents the viewer with an intimate and compassionate view of humanity. 

Setting up three point lighting.

In class we tried to set up three point lighting. This is the algorithm of how we managed to do it:

1. We turned all the lights off. 

2. Turned on our key light and adjusted the brightness.

3. Added our fill light. We put it on the opposite side of the key light, but still in front of the subject.

4. Brought in the back light. We could placed it anywhere behind the subject but we had to make sure it's out of the shot.


You can see the pictures I've taken below.

We have used aperture priority program which allowed us to choose a specific aperture value while the camera selects a shutter speed to match, thereby ensuring proper exposure.  We can see that the background of the picture is quiet blur. This is because we have used quite wide opened aperture. There are no shadows on the model face but there are some shadows on the background. ISO speed rating is quite high that means higher sensitivity to light thereby better image in the low light conditions.

We have used  shutter priority program. This allowed us to choose a specific shutter speed while the camera adjusts the aperture to ensure correct exposure. There are no shadows on the model's face but still some eye-catching shadows on the background. The background is fuzzy because of the small f-number of aperture. 

This picture was made with the aperture priority program. We have used quite big aperture value because we wanted to focus on the foreground and to make a background a bit fuzzy to hide the shadows which are really distractive. There are no shadows on the face of the model that means we set up 3 point key lighting correctly. The picture is bright as more light went into focus of the camera. This is because of the high ISO and shutter that was opened for quite long time.