This week I attended my class for the 2nd week at our community college. I am taking a continuing education class about portrait photography to see what I can learn. I love learning about things that I love and being surrounded by those that have the same desire.
We learned about different lighting techniques to use on faces this week. I am still unsure about it and it hasn’t made much sense to me yet, however, I did complete my assignment and attempt to get the lighting effects on my husband’s face. He was such a good sport about it all. I had to exaggerate the effect to see it and the only way I was able to to this was by turning off the lights and shutting the blinds in the bathroom and using a small decorative lamp for our light source.
I was setting up for the assignment and got this funny pic.
Weird huh?
I sat my husband in front of our dark wood door and had him hold our little lamp in different areas to achieve the lighting patterns. He commented that the photos weren’t very flattering and I told him it was fine as long as triangles showed up on his face I was happy. My husband was a bit scruffy looking because he is still off work because of his broken finger.
I thought it would be fun to share the different pics I got. If I figure out how this stuff is helpful, I will be sure to pass it along.
See what I mean? That first photo is short Rembrandt lighting. The side of the face furthest from the camera receives the most light and the side closest to the camera has a closed triangle on the face. Next photo is split lighting, butterfly and then broad Rembrandt lighting. There is another one where the triangle opens at the bottom and spills out light. I guess my husband’s face wasn’t made for such lighting because I couldn’t make it happen so I did it on myself and he was my official light holder. The photo came out kinda eerie and spooky. I like the dramatic effect. He kind of has subtle split lighting on his face.
Do you take any classes for fun? Are there any classes you want to take, but haven’t? I would love to hear about it.
