Butterfly lighting can be seen all the way back in the golden age of Hollywood. It was used mostly by Hollywood glamour photographers during the 1930s-1940s, it was used to capture the beauty of Hollywood stars such as Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. Butterfly lighting creates a dramatic butterfly shaped shadow under the subjects nose. Another name for this is ‘paramount lighting’, named for the Hollywood studio and how they lit their most glamorous actresses. All that is required for a butterfly setup is a light source (preferably a soft box or umbrella) placed behind the photographer and slightly to one side. Then you can experiment with the position of the light to find the most flattering angle for your subjects face.

Examples of butterfly lighting:

My photoshoot

During my photoshoot I took over 100 photos all together and these are the successful butterfly lighting photos which all include the butterfly shaped shadow under the nose of the subject.

Best photos:

These photos are some of the most successful ones from my photoshoot as each of them have a clear butterfly shaped shadow under the nose.

Editing:

The edit before any editing is good however I am going to make it black and white to that the shadow stands out more.

After making the photo black and white by removing the saturation all the details stand out much more. I did this using picsart. The photo is also in good focus as all aspects are in focus and the background is plain making the subject stand out.