Rembrandt lighting is a technique utilizing one light and one reflector or two separate lights. It’s a popular technique because it creates images that look both dramatic yet natural. It’s predominantly characterized by a lit-up triangle underneath the subject’s eye on the less illuminated area of the face (fill side).
how is it set up?
At its most basic, Rembrandt lighting consists of a single light source placed on a 45 degree offset from the subject, about 5 feet away. Positioned roughly two feet higher than eye level, the light source is angled slightly downward and hits the side of the face that is farthest away from the camera.
This lighting technique refers to that employed by Dutch old master Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. This is characterised by the presence of a triangle of light under the model’s eye, created by the 45° angled placement of lighting to the model. Here it is demonstrated in one of Rembrandt’s self-portraits;
This technique became popularised in 20th Century Hollywood when creating promotional imagery of film stars;
Marilyn MonroeKeanu Reeves
The use of Rembrandt lighting can add contrast, psychological depth and a sense of drama to what may otherwise be a rather straightforward image. It can also draw the viewer’s attention to the eye as a focal point.
To create this setup, it is possible to use either continuous or flash lighting as well as a soft or hard quality.
With soft lightWith hard light
It is important, as the only feature of this technique, that the light remains at a 40-45° angle to the model.
Above is an example of Rembrandt lighting in an image taken by me, again with soft lighting but clear in the triangular light under the left eye.
Chiaroscuro, deriving from the Italian describing the contrast between light and dark in imagery. Chiaroscuro lighting is a high-contrast lighting technique that uses a key light to achieve dark backgrounds with starkly lit subjects.
WHAT IS CHIAROSCURO LIGHTING USED FOR?
This type of lighting creates shadows and highlights on objects in your frame which help to bring out texture and shape.
Butterfly lighting is a vertically overhead lighting setup which acts to emphasise the cheekbones of the model, so called because of the shadow it creates under the nose, which resembles a butterfly shape. It can also be known as ‘paramount lighting’ or ‘glamour lighting’.
It allows the photographer to create shadows under the cheekbones and make the model appear thinner.
Soft lighting exampleHard lighting example
It is possible to use either hard or soft key light with this technique depending on the effect you are looking for.
The difference between soft light and hard light is found in the distribution or concentration of light in a particular area. Therefore to soften the light, it is typical to use a softbox to diffuse, an umbrella to diperse or a beauty dish to smooth. To harden the light, you can either use the unmodified key light or attach a grid spot.
It is recommended to use a reflector under the model’s face to ensure that the shadows created in the eye sockets are not too severe and do not hide the eyes completely.
The colour of the reflector is important as a warm one will add a tan effect to the model’s face whereas a cold one will be more neutrally effective.
Above is an example of a soft butterfly effect in an image taken by me in the school studio. It is very subtle but you can see that the shadows are present below the nose, brow and cheekbones as is found with this technique.
Butterfly lighting is a type of portrait lighting technique used primarily in a studio setting. Its name comes from the butterfly-shaped shadow that forms under the nose because the light comes from above the camera. You may also hear it called ‘paramount lighting’ or ‘glamour lighting’
WHAT IS BUTTERFLY LIGHTING USED FOR?
Butterfly lighting is a lighting pattern used in portrait photography where the key light is placed above and pointing down on the subject’s face. This creates a dramatic shadow under the nose and chin that looks like a butterfly. Butterfly lighting is usually used for modelling as is highlights the cheek bones by creating a shadow, this makes the model look skinner.
HOW TO CREATE BUTTERFLY LIGHTING:
RESPONSE TO BUTTERFLY LIGHTING:
Wiktoria Markiewicz Butterfly LightingCharlie Bell Butterfly Lighting
Rembrandt lighting is a standard lighting technique that is used in studio portrait photography and cinematography. Rembrandts lighting signature is to create a small triangle on the face.
Keanu ReveesMarilyn Monroe
WHY USE REMBRANDT LIGHTING?
Rembrandt lighting is used to create a mysterious or moody portrait. By using Rembrandt lighting you instantly create shadows and contrast – and of course, the characteristic ‘triangle of light’ beneath the subject’s eye, which draws the viewer’s attention should be drawn to the triangle of light on the subject’s cheek.
HOW TO CREATE REMBRANDT LIGHTING SET UP:
Light: Lighting styles are determined by the positioning of your light source. Rembrandt lighting is created by the single light source being at a 40 to 45-degree angle and higher than the subject. Use cans use both flashlights and continuous lights.
Lens: Use a 35mm or 50mm if space is at a premium – or if you’re looking at including more of the subject than just the head and shoulders. A 50mm works really nicely for portraits and will give a nice depth of field if you’re shooting at a shallow aperture. But a 35mm will give you a wider point of view and is great to fit more of the body in of.
Lighting Set Up
RESPONSE TO REMBRANDT LIGHTING:
George Flavell Rembrandt Lighting Charlie Bell Rembrandt Lighting
I gained inspiration from Martin Chambi’s work, specifically how he frames his images, although he is not a contemporary artist I wanted to test my knowledge on environmental portraits, and try out myself to create environmental portraits based on people in their work space this is why I am planning to visit areas in town. town is the biggest area in jersey of multiple and different businesses and employees, that hopefully I will be able to capture.
Mood board
The above mood board is what I inspire to either produce or take some tips from these photographs, I like portraits in a quite messy environment or an environment that has a lot going on, that’s why I’ll inspire to chose those types of environments. I would want to create images similarly to the ones above, experimenting with angles and different framings.
Who– I will ask random strangers that I find interesting looking as well as people who represent their environment very well. Mainly these will be people in their working environments.
What-There may be equipment that people hold in order to do their job, I will try to include them to represent them and their job. This adds also depth in the images, an insight of the profession. as well as the environment there may be many other items in the backroud.
Where– St Helier, Town, in many different businesses, shops which I’ll stumble across , these pictures will be inside based in peoples work instead of them being outdoor photographs.
When– One day during the week day, either during my free period or after school. Since I want to photograph people in their work I should pay attention to the usual working hours 9-5pm and know that during certain hours like 12pm-1pm it may get more busy, I should chose times where businesses/shops would be quiet and still open.
How– Doing my research on photographs and looking at how an environmental portrait should be taken, I will try to capture people in fast shutter speed as they may be moving a lot, and I don’t want to take up huge amounts of their time,.
Why– To get an understanding on how it not only is to take an environmental portrait but how it is to make connections with people while taking the photographs. As I have never done this before, I would have to also learn to get out of my comfort zone to speak and ask strangers to pose for me.
Chiaroscuro, deriving from the Italian describing the contrast between light and dark in imagery, comes from the painting technique of using high contrast in light modelling to establish a three-dimensional effect.
It first appeared in 15th Century artworks in Italy and Flanders (Holland), but was developed further in 16th century works within the Mannerism and Baroque movements.
Key subjects were usually dramatically lit by unseen sources in pieces by the old masters such as Rembrandt and Caravaggio.
Johannes Vermeer, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, 1665 (Dutch)The Flagellation of Christ by the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio, 1607 (Italian)
Chiaroscuro is employed commonly in cinema, especially within the Film noir movement of 40s and 50s Hollywood. Film noir concerns a style of glamorous crime/spy thrillers – particularly those that foreground moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. It is therefore clear why the use of chiaroscuro is so apparent in this genre, as the darkness and suspense is emphasised through this shadowy visual theme.
How can this be used in photography?
In a photographic studio, chiaroscuro can be achieved by using one key light or a variation using a reflector that reflects light from the key light back onto the sitter.
Do you remember the picture of a large bay window, the first paper negative ever to be made – that we watched in the film Fixing the Shadows – episode one of the first major television series devoted to the medium of photography, The Genius of Photography.
‘Fixing the Shadows’ from BBC Genius of Photography, Episode 1.
In the summer of 1835 William Henry Fox Talbot experimented with various chemicals to develop paper coatings suitable for use in a camera. He placed small wooden cameras that his wife called “mousetraps” all over his estate. The earliest surviving paper negative dates from August 1835, a small recording of the bay window of Lacock Abbey (left). In 1978, the German photographer Floris Neusüss visited Lacock Abbey to make photograms of the same window. He returned again in 2010 for the Shadow Catchers exhibition at the V&A to create a life-sized version of Talbot’s window (below right).
Henry Fox TalbotFloris Neusüss
That 1978 photogram was the start of our adventures in creating photograms of large objects in the places where we found them […] we took our equipment to Lacock Abbey and made a photogram of a fixed subject. This particular subject was for us not just a window in a building but an iconic window, a window on photography, opened by Talbot. The window is doubly important, because to be able to invent the photograph, Talbot first used photograms to test the light sensitivity of chemicals. His discovery became a window on the world. I wonder what percentage of our understanding of the planet we live on now comes from photographs? — Floris Neusüss
The idea of photographs functioning like windows makes total sense. Like the camera viewfinder, windows frame our view of the world. We see through them and light enters the window so that we can see beyond. Photographs present us with a view of something. However, it might also be possible to think of photographs as mirrors, reflecting our particular view of the world, one we have shaped with our personalities, our subconscious motivations, so that it represents how our minds work as well as our eyes. The photograph’s glossy surface reflects as much as it frames. Of course, some photographs might be both mirrors and windows.
Photo-historian, Gerry Badger who was part of the editorial team producing the television series The Genius of Photography wrote in the introduction of the book of the same name that John Szarkowski’s distinction of photographs as ‘mirrors’ or ‘windows’ is useful, but only to a point, ‘because most photographs are both mirrors and windows.’ (Badger 2007:8)
The exhibitionMirrors and Windows, anexhibition of American photography since 1960, opened at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMa) in July of 1978. The curator John Szarkowski’s attempted to categorise photographers whose work largely reflected the subjectivity of the artist in comparison with those whose work largely sought to see outside themselves. Szarkowski wrote in the catalogue essay that accompanied the exhibition:
“The two creative motives that have been contrasted here are not discrete. Ultimately each of the pictures in this book is part of a single, complex, plastic tradition. Since the early days of that tradition, an interior debate has contested issues parallel to those illustrated here. The prejudices and inclinations expressed by the pictures in this book suggest positions that are familiar from older disputes. In terms of the best photography of a half-century ago, one might say that Alfred Stieglitz is the patron of the first half of this book and Eugène Atget of the second. In either case, what artist could want a more distinguished sponsor? The distance between them is to be measured not in terms of the relative force or originality of their work, but in terms of their conceptions of what a photograph is: is it a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it, or a window, through which one might better know the world?” — John Szarkowski, 1978
MIRRORS AND WINDOWS has been organized around Szarkowski’s thesis that such personal visions take one of two forms. In metaphorical terms, the photograph is seen either as a mirror – a romantic expression of the photographer’s sensibility as it projects itself on the things and sights of this world; or as a window – through which the exterior world is explored in all its presence and reality.
Take a look at the images below. Think about whether, in your opinion, they are mirrors or windows.
You could draw a horizontal line with the word ‘Mirror’ at one end and ‘Window’ at the other. You could add a list of words that help to describe what these words suggest.
Now, try placing each of these images somewhere on this spectrum. Annotate the images to explain your decisions.
Garry Winogrand – Los Angeles, 1969 Gelatin-silver printBill Brandt – Nude, East Sussex, 1968Nan Goldin – Nan and Brian in bed, NYC. 1983 CibachromeRobert Heinecken – Figure Sections/(Multiple Solution Puzzle), 1966Bernd + Hilla Becher – Lime Kilns, Kalköfen, Harlingen, 1968Richard Hamilton – Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? Collage 1956Eugene Atget – Street Musicians, 1898William Eggleston – from Memphis, Tennessee, Dye transfer print, early 1970sRobert Rauschenberg – Windward, Oil and silkscreen ink on canvas, 1963Richard Long – A line made by walking, England 1967
TASK 1: 1000 word mini-essay Essay question: How can photography be both ‘mirrors’ and ‘windows’ of the world? DEADLINE: WED 6 DECEMBER
Follow these instructions:
Read two texts above and select 3 quotes form each that is relevant to your essay.
Select two images, one that represent a mirror and another that represents a window as examples to use in your essay.
Use some of the key words that you listed above to describe what the mirrors and windows suggest.
Essay plan Introduction (250 words): Reflect on the origin of photography and describe in your own words the difference between the two photographic processes, Daguerreotype and Calotype. Consider how they could be viewed as either a mirror or a window of the world according to John Szarkowski’s thesis. Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s text and comment if you agree or disagree.
Paragraph 1 (250 words): Choose an image that in your view is a mirror and analyse how it is a subjective expression. Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s thesis and another from Farrah Karapetian’s analysis which is opposing Szarkowski’s original point of view. Make sure you comment to advance argumentation in providing perspective.
Paragraph 2 (250 words): Choose an image that in your view is a window and analyse how it is an objective expression. Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s thesis and another from Farrah Karapetian’s analysis and follow similar procedure as above ie. two opposing points of view and commentary to provide a critical perspective.
Conclusion (250 words): Refer back to the essay question and write a conclusion where you summarise Szarkowski’s theory and Karapetian’s critique of his thesis. Describe differences and similarities between the two images above and their opposing concepts of objectivity and subjectivity.
TASK 2: Photo-assignment A creative response to documentary (reality) and tableaux (fiction) photography DEADLINE: MON 11 DEC
RECORDING > Based on the theme of ‘NOSTALGIA‘ – and with relevance to your Personal Study – produce 3 images that are documenting reality and another 3 images that are staging reality. Use either camera or AI technology, or a combination at free will. The focus here is on creativity, imagination and experimentation. Add images to your essay as photographic responses to Szarkowski’s thesis and evaluate.
DEADLINE: MON 11 DEC Publish essay and your photographic responses
GUIDELINES: ESSAY WRITING
Marking Criteria
Literary Sources:
Read key texts that will provide you with knowledge and understanding
It demonstrates evidence of reading and will enable you to draw upon different points of view – not only your own.
Select relevant quotes and make notes when you’re reading…key words, concepts, passages including page number
Write down author’s name, date it was published, title, publisher, place of publication so you can list source in a bibliography
Bibliography:
List all the literary sources that you have read and arrange in alphabetical order. For example: Szarkowski, J. (1978), Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since 1960. Museum of Modern Art: New York
Quotation and Referencing:
Why should you reference?
To add academic support for your work
To support or disprove your argument
To show evidence of reading
To help readers locate your sources
To show respect for other people’s work
To avoid plagiarism
To achieve higher marks
What should you reference?
Anything that is based on a piece of information or idea that is not entirely your own.
That includes, direct quotes, paraphrasing or summarising of an idea, theory or concept, definitions, images, tables, graphs, maps or anything else obtained from a source
How should you reference?
Use Harvard System of Referencing…see Powerpoint: harvard system of referencing for further details on how to use it.
Rim lighting is a technique which lights up a subject by using off-camera flash. It highlights the contours of a subject and creates a dramatic and mysterious effect.
Rim lighting, also referred to as back or edge lighting, is created by placing a single light behind the subject.
