Italian for ‘lightdark’. Chiaroscuro has a heavy contrast on light and shadow which gives the subject volume and depth.

This style evolved from 16th century renaissance paintings and made its way into the French film genre ‘film noir’ which utilised chiaroscuro lighting to suggest sexual motivation and moral ambiguity.

In ‘Citizen Kane’, chiaroscuro lighting is used to highlight the mysterious qualities in him and the difference between Kane’s personal and political lifestyle.

Method

To achieve chiaroscuro lighting you need to use a single key light. The unlit parts of the subject should all be dark like the background.

For a less dramatic and softer setting you can also use a reflector to diffuse the light and lighten up dark patches.

This image has a harsher lighting which hides the subject from view, adding more of a mysterious element to the photo.

This uses a softer lighting for a more intimate photo

Attempt

In this image we positioned the key light to only cover her side.

In the editing process I used the spot healing took to clear up blemishes but didn’t want to blur the image otherwise it would distort too much detail.