Rembrandt lighting is a technique for portrait photography named after Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, the great Dutch painter. It refers to a way of lighting a face so that an upside-down light triangle appears under the eyes of the subject.

Rembrandt lighting is characterized by an illuminated triangle under the eye of the person, particularly on the less illuminated side of the face. It’s a popular technique because it creates images that look both dramatic yet natural.

Rembrandt photography :

Rembrandt context/analysis

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.

Why was Rembrandt important?

Rembrandt Harmen zoon van Rijnprolific was seen as a painter, draftsman, and etcher, Rembrandt van Rijn is usually regarded as the greatest artist of Holland’s “Golden Age.” This technique was made during the Renaissance period, but Rembrandt then pushed t even further and used dramatic lighting to lure out the ‘psychological depth’ of his models.

what to use when taking photos in the style of Rembrandt :

you can use…

one type of lighting that is usually placed at a 45 degree angle on the side of your model, take photos from whichever side of your model that you would like the triangle shape to form on.

here are my camera settings :

My response :

contact sheet :

Best 3 images :

In my images I have used one type of continuous lighting placed at an angle to the side of my model, I asked my model to tilt her head slightly to give the Rembrandt effect where the triangle is visible on the right side of her face. This image is all natural colourings other then the editing which has been done to the images where I had changed the saturation, the dark and bright areas have been adjusted and I had cropped the images to fit a portrait shaped canvas. immediately with all these images my eye gets drawn straight to the lit up areas of the images.