PORTRAIT LIGHTING

Having spent nearly 30 years as a professional Portrait photographer, using conventional equipment, just thinking about digital photography felt like a betrayal of my profession. Digital was in its infancy at the time I retired from professional portrait photography. Like most professionals I resisted the change, I couldn't imagine the new technology replacing conventional photography. "The quality will never match that of film" was a phrase used by the "diehards", but then my foresight was never as accurate as my hindsight. Digital photography is now the "norm" and I regret not dipping my feet in the water years ago.

About 18 months ago the glowing embers of my photographic creativity started to burn brighter when I visited an exhibition of digital landscape photography. I couldn't even tell you the name of the photographer but I do remember how impressed I was by the quality of the work. I marveled at the colour saturation and sharpness of the images and needed to know more so I made the decision to invest in a digital camera. I could not justify the cost of a professional camera but knew I needed a little more than some of the smaller cameras on the market. I spent six months trawling camera shops, internet and magazines before I eventually settled on a Fuji S602. I won't go in to the specifications now, but it looked like it would do what I wanted and it was less than £1000.

I no longer have a studio, although I still have the lighting and many of the props, I have spent the past 12 months taking landscapes and costal photography but feel I will eventually return to portraits, which was a passion of mine when I was a professional. I left professional "people" photography for many reasons but one was that I no longer had the patience to deal with the "general public". Dealing with new technology and people all at the same time was more than I could cope with.

This site has been running for about 2 years and I thought I would like to offer tutorials on as many aspects of photography as possible, so I thought I should start it off with some tips on photographing people. Most of the photographs displayed here were taken on conventional equipment and the results have been scanned. The techniques, however, will be valid with digital cameras. I should also point out that they were either taken in a studio or with daylight. The studio shots would require some additional lighting, and I am aware that this is not always possible. Many smaller digital cameras don't have a facility for using external flash. However please look at the technique and recognise the shading on the face or body. Your lighting is paramount in portrait photography.

THE REMBRANDT EFFECT

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was, In my opinion, one of the most accomplished portrait painters that ever lived, His use of light and shade was outstanding as is evident from the beautiful paintings he produced during his lifetime. Many portrait photographers have studied his work over the years and used similar lighting techniques to produce stunning low key portraits. Julia Margaret Cameron in the 1800s was famous for her romantic portraits. No electronic flash available and very slow shutter speeds.

The majority of Rembrandt's portraits were painted in a studio using one skylight as the light source, but his portraits display a depth and character seldom seen in other portraits. I spent many hours at the portrait gallery in London studying his paintings, analysing the light, the shade and the contrast of colours. I must confess to never having emulated the quality of his work but I did manage to reproduce the molding on my subjects using very simple lighting in the studio and choosing the right locations for daylight portraits.

Look at the painting on the right and study the detail and the soft shadows, essential when photographing people. How can we produce the same effect with artificial light and the "unkindness" of modern lenses. Remember when I was a portrait photographer, I had no digital equipment, no Adobe PhotoShop to enhance the finished picture.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was, In my opinion, one of the most accomplished portrait painters that ever lived, His use of light and shade was outstanding as is evident from the beautiful paintings he produced during his lifetime. Many portrait photographers have studied his work over the years and used similar lighting techniques to produce stunning low key portraits. Julia Margaret Cameron in the 1800s was famous for her romantic portraits. No electronic flash available and very slow shutter speeds.

The majority of Rembrandt's portraits were painted in a studio using one skylight as the light source, but his portraits display a depth and character seldom seen in other portraits. I spent many hours at the portrait gallery in London studying his paintings, analysing the light, the shade and the contrast of colours. I must confess to never having emulated the quality of his work but I did manage to reproduce the molding on my subjects using very simple lighting in the studio and choosing the right locations for daylight portraits.

Look at the painting on the right and study the detail and the soft shadows, essential when photographing people. How can we produce the same effect with artificial light and the "unkindness" of modern lenses. You should remember, when I was a portrait photographer, I had no digital equipment, no Adobe PhotoShop to enhance the finished picture.

PORTRAIT LIGHTING (Low Key)

This portrait was taken a few years ago using a hasselblad camera. I was quite proud of it and Kodak gave me a gold award

An enlargement of the head area gives a better view of the shadows on the face

In an atempt to create the "Rembrandt effect" I used one main light source to the left and quite high. One electronic flash fitted with a "soft box" 1mtr square and as close as I could get to the subject, without being in shot, in fact I could see the light in the viewfinder but as the format was square I knew I would lose it in a 10x8 picture.

Keep your light close to the subject. If you pull back, the area of the light gets smaller and gains contrast, the more contrast you have the sharper the shadows become. However, for this to be true your light source must be large and soft. The shadows become more difficult to control if you use a small lamp and pull it back. In this case only 2 lights were used. A soft Box and a fill which was a white umbrella.

The soft box was set to give f8 using 160 ASA film and the fill was set to give f4 to f5.6. You will also notice that the fill light is on the same side as the main light. This gives a gradual fade in the light but still coming from the same side. As a general rule I always set the fill light to be 1.5 to 2 stops less than the main light. This way you are not flooding the shadows with light and killing the modeling created by the main source.

Other important points to remember:

• Make sure the eyes are centred, giving even amounts of white each side.
• The head is straight and not tilted from one side or the other.
• The light falling on the face forms a small triangle of light under the eye.

Camera lenses are very sharp and not kind to your subject, male or female. I used a black stocking over the lens to take the edge off. Black stockings mostly spread the highlights into the shadows and create a very pleasing effect. They also reduce the exposure by approximately 0.5 stops.

This lighting arrangement is also referred to as "short or narrow lighting" so called because the brightest part of the face is turned away from the camera. As the shadow side is close to the lens it has a slimming effect on the face. The model shown is already slim but it can be quite effective on subjects who have chubby faces. Lighting the front of the face would have the opposite effect and is known as "Broad lighting"