Five Effective, Professional One-Light Portrait Photography Setups

When you look at the work of professional portrait photographers, you might notice that it often employs two- or three-light setups. And while those certainly have their place, you might be surprised by just how versatile a single light and a bit of know-how can be. This fantastic video tutorial will show you five useful single-light setups for portraiture work. 

Coming to you from our good friend, Pye Jirsa, with Adorama TV, this great video tutorial will show you five single-light setups for portrait photography, including Rembrandt, butterfly, clamshell, square, and backlit flat light. No doubt, having multiple lights enables a ton of creative ideas, but on the other hand, one light is a lot easier to work with, especially if you are shooting on location. Furthermore, if you are newer to working with artificial lighting, I think it is especially important to start with a single light. This will allow you to more easily learn concepts like subject-to-source distance, relative source size, fall-off, and more. Once you have built an intuitive understanding of these ideas, you will be better able to begin to tackle more complicated lighting setups. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Jirsa. 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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I liked it.