Studio Portraiture: A photograph of a person in a studio

Studio lighting: Any form of lighting equipment used by photographers, artificial or natural, to enhance their photography.

There are around 7 types of lighting mostly used in controlled studios such as:

Split Lighting

Split lighting is a technique used to illuminate only half the subjects face with the other half in darkness. This is achieved by having the light source at either the direct left or right of the subject 90 degrees from the direction of the face. Split lighting is used to create moody atmospheres and interesting effects.

After that I exported it into photoshop

 I edited the brightness/contrast and exposure slightly on photoshop however I did not make any other adjustments

 

Alessio Albi

Alessio Albi was born in Peurugia Italy in 1986 he was always fascinated with nature ad science and went onto get a medical degree and at first worked as a nutritionist before he started his career as a photographer at age 24. He takes extremely atmospheric and moody photos and focuses his style mostly on fashion, advertisement and portrait photography where he primarily photographs women to utilise their feminine features such as long hair to add to his creative style. He stated that he was inspired by some of the hard periods in his life but also the beauty he sees in people around him. He uses both natural and studio lighting to take his pictures and uses a range of different skills. He often has his subjects to pose with very subtle facial expressions to let the viewer interpretate the mood and emotion themselves. He also uses dramatic and bold shadows in his pieces to create texture and interesting shapes.

Alessio Albi Images

Technical

I don’t believe that this image has had much editing done to it as the colours look quite natural besides the classic magazine look of the blurred skin to make it look glowy. The lighting looks to be natural sunlight, however could be warm studio lights. Albi has used Rembrandt lighting a long with creating some unique shadows using an obscure object. There is a short depth of field (DoF) as the background is blurred and the camera is focused on her shoulder and face which are close to the lens however Albi still expresses the 3D-ness of the model by having her place her right shoulder to be visible in the photo but shrouded in shadow. The exposure time also seems to be average as there is no glare to the highlights and the image doesn’t look under exposed as the area in shadow is still visible and the photo overall is not dark. ISO is also

Visual

The colours are natural and contrast with each other as the subject has a lot of warm tones to her however the background is very plain and uses cold grey tones to it but I believe the overall tone is light as the use of sunlight looking lighting with the deep shadows creating the leading lines to enhance the eyes of the subject and have them the main focus. The texture is smooth as there is no graininess due to poor exposure or IOS and the subject of the photo is the girls glowy skin. The only repeating pattern I can see within this image is the spiralling line creating leading lines towards the eye however the pattern is not completely symmetrical and the line breaks off at the top of her cheek and bottom of her eye.

Contextual

• Albi states much of his inspiration comes from natures elements. He grew up in a family of artists and was heavily influenced by his upbringing.

Conceptual

I believe this photo is trying to convey the natural skin tone of the subject and how we as people naturally focus on the eyes of a person were looking at. I think with the subjects hair swept off of her face and how its just her with no make up or fancy clothes we see just the raw person herself and they say eyes are the window to the soul and I think Albi is trying to show how its not what matters on the outside by taking away from what society wants from her and rather the person the subject really is

Technical

This picture looks to be taken in a dance studio with the subject positioned lying on the floor, so the unnatural warm ceiling lights are shinning directly onto her face to create highlights on her cheeks, while the mirror creates the illusion of multiples of the subject. I can also infer it is a dance or drama studio of some kind as the subject looks to be wearing a costume. I believe this image has been edited as most ceiling lighting is not such warm colours and usually the intensity of the indoor electrical lighting would create more of a glare on the subjects skin then the soft highlights in the picture.

Visual

Albi uses warm tones in this image and has light tones to it. The subjects skin (I assume) is edited to be clearer such as often fashion photography is and therefore the texture is smooth however Albi has utilised the subjects hair draped behind her to add more fluidity and movement to the image. The picture looks less flat than many other portraits and looks more 3D due to the illusion of the duplicates.

Contextual

Conceptual

The image is taken so that you can only see the face and shoulders of the subject to add to the illusion without the viewer knowing straight away that a mirror is used to create it. I believe the image is supposed to be a show of Alessio Albi’s creative nature.

Loop Lighting

Loop lighting is similar to Rebrandt lighting where the aim is to have the cheek and part of the jawbone, under the eyebrow and the side of nose in shadow however, the main aim is to create a circular or loop-like shadow under one part of the nose. To achieve this you’ll want to have your light source at a higher angle to the subjects eyeline and at a 45 degree angle and move the light around and experiment making sure to not have the nose and cheek shadow connect.

Rembrandt Lighting

Rembrandt lighting also known as the Rembrandt Patch is the utilising the face structure and the shadows it casts to create a triangular shape under the eye. You do this by having the light at a 45 degree angle left or right from the direction the subject is facing and from a high angle looking down towards the subject. you then experiment with how far the light is from the subject depending on the subject themselves. You can also use reflectors to point the light at where you’d like the triangle to be.

My Rembrandt Images

Once I did this I opened the image in photoshop and used the “Sharpen Tool” around the subjects eye and in the highlights of her hair to keep it more in focus. I also used the “Dodge Tool” to lighten the dark spots.

Butterfly Lighting

Butterfly lighting is all about the shadows under the nose and creating a bat or butterfly like shape using the nose for shadows. To do this you stand the light close in front and high above the subject looking down at them. You can also use a reflector under the face to stop the chin from being in too much darkness.

 

I then used the “masking tool” in Lightroom to select the entirety of the subject and edited it to give her face more exposure

 

I then lowered the exposure on the background to give it a colder feel as I thought the shadows made it quite an eerie looking image

I then used the “masking tool and objective tool” to lighten the shadows over the eyes I repeated this on both eyes.

After that I felt that the subject looked washed out so I decided to up the temperature and vibrancy to bring back some colour

 

I also opened the edited image in Photoshop and cropped the image and used the Dodge and Burn tool to accentuate the lines of shadows.

 

 

 

Broad Lighting

Broad lighting is a lighting technique where the part of the face turned towards the camera is the brightest and most lit up section.

Short Lighting

Short lighting is a lighting technique that’s pretty much the opposite of broad lighting where the camera is focused on the darkest lit part of the face.

Back Lighting

Back lighting is the lighting technique where all the lighting is coming from behind the subject and the subject is facing away from the light source. This is the same technique used to create silhouettes.