Focus On Lighting Photos Focus on the Fundamentals.pdf

Butterfly/Beauty lighting
Butterfly lighting is where there is
one light placed directly in front
of and a bit above the subject
at an angle to create a shadow
under the nose that is shaped
like a butterfly. Depending on the
facial structure, we often want
a bit of fill, which could be the
built-in flash, but a bit of foam
board offers more choices as to
what gets filled. In the photo at
right, we used a flash with an
umbrella as the sole light source.
(We added the dark vignette in
postproduction.)
Beauty lighting uses a larger light
and a reflector or second light is
placed below. The goal in beauty
lighting is to make most of the
shadows disappear.
Beauty lighting is frequently used
in, guess what, ads showing
flawless skin for beauty products.
The light is such that shadows are
pretty much filled with light, leaving
almost no wrinkles! <strong>On</strong> the
following page, for the image on
the right, we used an off-camera
flash in a softbox placed above the
camera facing the sitter. A silver
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<strong>Focus</strong> <strong>On</strong> <strong>Lighting</strong> <strong>Photos</strong>
reflector was placed just out of the
camera’s view, angled to reflect
the flash above. We could have
used a second flash below, but for
most of this book, we’re assuming
you don’t have two off-camera
flashes. If we had used a second
flash, we would have used it with
either a softbox or an umbrella.
You can see the difference the fill
card makes by comparing it with
the image on the left.