The Best of Wedding Photography.pdf - Free

from the camera lens. It is a dramatic style of lighting used
to accent elegant features. It is used less frequently now
than in the past, but it is still a stylish type of lighting.
In rim lighting, the main light is placed behind the
subject so that it illuminates the profile of the subject
and leaves a polished highlight along the edge of the face.
The main light will also highlight the hair and neck of the
subject. Care should be taken so that the accent of the
light is centered on the face and not so much on the hair
or neck.
The fill light is moved to the same side of the camera
as the main light and a reflector is used for fill. An optional
hair light can be used on the opposite side of the main
light for better tonal separation of the hair from the background.
The background light is used normally.
AVOID OVERLIGHTING
In setting the lights, it is important that you position the
lights gradually, studying their effect as you use more and
more light aimed at the subject. If you merely point the
light directly at the subject, you will probably overlight the
person, producing pasty highlights with no detail.
Adjust the lights carefully, and observe the effects from
the camera position. Instead of aiming the light so that the
core of light strikes the subject, feather the light so that
you employ the edge of the light to light the subject. The
trick is to add brilliance to your highlights. This is achieved
by the use of careful lighting. The highlights, when brilliant,
have minute specular (pure white) highlights within
the main highlight. This further enhances the illusion of
great depth in a portrait.
Sometimes feathering won’t make the skin “pop”
(show highlight brilliance) and you’ll have to make a lateral
adjustment to the light or move it back from its current
position. A good starting position for your main light
is 8–12 feet from the subject.
LIGHTING RATIOS
The term “lighting ratio” is used to describe the difference
in intensity between the shadow and highlight side
of the face. It is expressed numerically. A 3:1 ratio, for example,
means that the highlight side of the face has three
units of light falling on it, while the shadow side has only
one unit of light falling on it. Ratios are useful because
they determine how much local contrast there will be in
the portrait. They do not determine the overall contrast
of the scene; rather, lighting ratios determine how much
contrast you will give to the lighting of the subject(s).
As a reflection of the difference in intensity between
the main light and the fill light, the ratio is an indication
of how much shadow detail you will have in the portrait.
Because the fill light controls the degree to which the
shadows are illuminated, it is important to keep the lighting
ratio fairly constant. A desirable ratio for outdoor
group portraits in color is 3:1; it is ideal for average faces.
Determining Lighting Ratios. There is considerable
debate and confusion over the calculation of lighting ratios.
This is principally because you have two systems at
work, one arithmetical and one logarithmic. F-stops are in
themselves a ratio between the size of the lens aperture
and the focal length of the lens, which is why they are expressed
as f/2.8, for example. The difference between one
f-stop and the next full f-stop is either half the light or double
the light. F/8 lets in twice as much light through a
lens as f/11 and half as much light as f/5.6.
However, when we talk about light ratios, each full stop
is equal to two units of light. Therefore, each half stop is
equal to one unit of light, and each quarter stop is equivalent
to half a unit of light. This is, by necessity, arbitrary,
but it is a practical system for determining the difference
between the highlight and shadow sides of the face.
The groom’s white tux acts as the perfect high-key fill, illuminating all
of the shadows on the bride’s face and in her eyes, creating a very low
lighting ratio. Photograph by Bruno Mayor.
STUDIO LIGHTING 65