How to Master This Cinematic Lighting Setup

Understanding how to use light is one of the most important lessons a photographer needs to learn. Master this easy yet effective setup before your next shoot.

The team over at Westcott Lighting are back once again with another insightful video on creating cinematic light for headshots. This week, San Diego-based filmmaker and educator Caleb Wojcik breaks down his approach to lighting in a very understandable and accessible way. If you're new to using lights in your work, it can be rather intimidating to see several different kinds of lights on set and know exactly what all the various components are doing. This video is different from many educational ones in that it shows what each light is doing separately before it is added to the final setup. This approach not only helps us to understand what is going on, but it also makes it much easier for us to try and recreate the same setup for ourselves.

While the video uses Flex LED lights to accomplish the finished product, you could easily do something similar with any lights you already have and a couple of colored gels for your background. The main thing to understand in this useful video is how and why Wojcik uses the light he does. Once you grasp lighting concepts such as this one, you will begin to open up a world of creative possibilities which will help you take your photography and filmmaking to the next level.

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Paul Parker is a commercial and fine art photographer. On the rare occasion he's not doing photography he loves being outdoors, people watching, and writing awkward "About Me" statements on websites...

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