XaiJu
thomasholmphoto
thomasholmphoto

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Look me in the eyes

I lit this model with a silver beauty dish very close to the camera but a bit off to the left of the camera, and used a silver reflector below to reflect a bit of light up and create more sheen to the skin.

Here are a couple of tips when trying to deconstruct light from an image:

Start by looking at the eyes: How many dots are there and how do they look?
Are the highlights round, square rectangular, octagonal, or flat from below (which means floor or reflector)?

Are the highlights hard/round flat or do they fade from the center?

Where are the shadows (on model and background)?
If they are as you see in this image, with shadows on both sides of the model, and it's not a ring flash (which would cast shadows around the model), the light is closer to the model than the camera, so the camera can see parts of the model the light does not illuminate.

In this case, the shadow is also fairly diffuse, so it can't be a small light source, and again it has to be close to the model.
In the image above it's. 70cm silver beauty dish.
If you have this kind of reflection in the skin it's almost always a silver reflector or umbrella. If a silver umbrella, there will normally be visible steps in the shadow transition.

If the skin is more even, with less specular highlights, it's a white beauty dish, a white umbrella, or a diffused softbox of sorts.

If the light illuminates a very large area it's usually a very big modifier, that will cast a softish shadow. The harder the shadow, the longer away, or smaller the light is.

If the light is constricted to the model, it's usually some form of spot, such as a snoot, grid/honeycomb on a standard reflector, or perhaps a Fresnel spot or even focusable spotlight.
The clues are in the shadow hardness and transition.

Alternatively, the light was "flagged" either by using barn doors or external flags to clean up the spill light and constrict the light to only reach what it is supposed to reach.
Or both.

So let's test your abilities, and see if you can deconstruct the light setup in these images. Hints:
Only one lamp was used on each, and a black "negative fill" flag was placed on the shadow side on the first and last image. And an extra clue: the ceiling height on all three images is around 3m or 10'.

Feel free to comment on your findings below.

#1 Aja:

#2 Wiana Model:

#3 Laetitia

Look me in the eyes Look me in the eyes

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