By using studio (artificial) lighting it can help achieve some nice dramatic and intense photos, there are many creative possibilities you can use but some well known ones for studio portraits are Rembrandt lighting, butterfly lighting and chiaroscuro.
Rembrandt Lighting
Rembrandt Lighting is one of the many lighting techniques that are used for portrait photography. Rembrandt Lighting is named after Rembrandt Harmenszoom van Rijn who was a great Dutch painter. This technique refers to a way of lighting a face so that a upside down light triangle appears under the eye of the subject. This style ended up gaining lots of popularity in Hollywood around the early 20th century, Film director Cecil B. DeMille introduced spotlights which allowed for more realistic effects of light and shadows to be created into ‘plain’ studio lighting setups which were generally in use. This eventually became widely used in promotional photographs of film stars as it allowed for dramatic and eye-catching pictures of them to be created.
Why use Rembrandt Lighting?
Rembrandt Lighting is effective as it not only gives your subject an individual look but it also acts as a photographic device to draw the eye. In photography there are many ways you can achieve this with using things like leading lines, depth of field and negative fields which are all methods that are effective to draw the viewers eye to the subject of the image.
In portraiture the eyes of the subject are almost always the main focus point of the image and Rembrandt lighting shows this as the light triangle is always under your eye which then helps attract the viewers full attention to the subjects eye.
So by using the Rembrandt Lighting technique it becomes a very effective way to draw the viewers attention to focus on the eye of the subject which is the main aim of portraiture.
To take a picture of Rembrandt lighting you want to make sure that the key light is 45 degrees away from the camera while still shining the light at the subject. You could also use a reflector alongside it which will help create more shadows under the cheek which could make it easier to achieve that light triangle under the eye.
Butterfly Lighting
Butterfly lighting is another lighting technique which is primarily used in a studio setting. The name comes from the butterfly shaped shadow which is formed under the nose because the light being used is positioned above the camera. People also refer it as ‘paramount lighting’ or ‘glamour lighting’.
Butterfly Lighting is mostly used for portraits, It’s a light pattern that flatters mostly everybody which makes it one of the most common lighting setups used. Butterfly Lighting was popularly used to take photographs of some of classic Hollywood’s most famous stars which is why people also refer it to Paramount Lighting. With this lighting technique it can highlight the subjects cheekbones and create shadows under them which in some cases can make the subject look thinner.
Key light is essential for Butterfly Lighting and this can either be a flash unit or continuous. If the lighting is continuous it can allow you to use lights like strobes, speed lights, LEDs or in some cases even the sun. The main focus for Butterfly Lighting is not the quality of the light but the setup as for the best effect you would want to make sure your light is creating the right amount of shadows and highlights that you want to achieve.
Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro (Italian for light dark) is a visual element in art, it refers to the bold contrast between light and dark. It first appeared in the 15th century on a painting in Italy and Flanders (Holland), it is the effect of light modelling in paintings, drawings and printmaking where the three-dimensional volume is encouraged by high amounts of light and shadows.
Chiaroscuro in films
Film noir (French for “black film”), was a cinematic term which was used to describe stylish crime dramas made in Hollywood, Specifically ones which highlighted the moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. The classic Hollywood film noir period was popularly used from the early 1940s till the late 1950s. Film noir of that era often used the low key black and white visuals that were previously used in German Expressionist cinematography.
How is it used in photography?
In photography chiaroscuro is used to increase the amount of highlights and shadows which helps attract attention towards the shape of the subject.
To take a photo using the chiaroscuro lighting technique you would want to use a low key lighting setup where a key light will be used as the sole light source in order to achieve those dark backgrounds while also illuminating the subject with high shadow tones and highlights.
