If you ever watch videos of professional portrait photographers at work, you might them using two, three, or even more lights in complex and intricate setups. And while those certainly have their place, you can still create fantastic images using only one light, and if you are new to artificial lighting, this is actually the better way to learn how to use it. This great video tutorial will show you a straightforward one-light setup for portraits and how to create professional portraits with it.
Coming to you from our friend, Pye Jirsa, with Adorama TV, this awesome video tutorial will show you an effective one-light setup for portraiture work. If you are new to working with artificial lighting, it is important to start with a single light before moving on to more complicated setups. The reason for this is that you will want to build up a strong understanding of the properties of light, such as how the relative size of the modifier affects the softness of the light, subject-to-source distance, and more and how to control all of these to suit your creative and technical needs. Using multiple lights simultaneously makes it much more difficult to see which light is affecting what and to solve the problems posed. Once you are comfortable with a single source, you will find moving on to more complicated setups much easier. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Jirsa.
