Learn How These Fantastic Portraits Were Lit and Shot

Portrait lighting is about a lot more than simply creating a technically balanced image of your subject; it is your chance to exercise your creativity and show off your subject in a compelling and interesting fashion. If you would like to improve your own portrait photography, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you how one photographer lit and shot a set of portraits using several lights and modifiers. 

Coming to you from Nathan Elson, this great video will show you how he lit and shot a series of portraits using multiple lights and modifiers. One thing I found especially interesting was how Elson used multiple lights behind the scrim with slightly different angles and positions. Scrims are used to soften light, and often, you simply put a light behind them, adjust to taste, and you are done with that aspect. But as Elson details, he was especially concerned with ensuring the light was particularly evenly spread out across the scrim to create an especially large and even source, and I think his concern was well founded, as the results speak for themselves. Check out the video above for the full rundown on the lighting setup from Elson. 

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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4 Comments

Thank you kindly for the feature.

Distance between model and lights look large. I think it looks like a overly complicated way of doing it. He does have a fantastic studio, large and spacey, but almost nobody else do. I don’t think this setup would fit in my 5x7 m studio. And that I think, is more space then most have.
I could use the walls around to bounce light and probably could get to the same point using one large umbrella.

That's the thing with photography, there are a million ways to do the same thing. That being said, I'd be interested to see if you could pull off the same look with one light bouncing off of walls. I'd say go for it and post the results here. Could be fun.

Hei!

I have enjoyed watching your stuff for years now. Love your studio, it’s a dream come true.
I use soft light and are happy with the results. And I use a large transparent umbrella and my walls are white. I have large styrofoam boards that are black if I want harder light. That works for me.
Your the educator with the props and the model, if you want, try yourself. It could be interesting to see.