Lighting Basics Class Assignment #2 - Feedback Please

Mike J

I'm 2 weeks into a studio lighting class and our 2nd assignment was to shoot 4 portraits with a single light. We had to submit one each with loop, Rembrandt, split, and butterfly lighting. Here's what I came up with. Any advice or feedback would be appreciated. To date all of my lighting work has been with speedlites and I didn't appreciate what a difference a modeling light can make. I think an Alien Bee or two are in my future...:D

#1 Butterfly


#2 Loop


#3 Split


#4 Rembrandt

BrettDeutsch

Nice work overall. Your Rembrandt and Loop lighting though are pretty close to each other. For Rembrandt, the loop below her nose should be longer so that it extends through to the shadow on the far side of her face thus creating the strong upside down triangle below the eye that is characteristic of Rembrandt lighting. Not sure why the color balance on your split light is so far off -- generally I think it's an awful lighting choice anyhow, but an assignment is an assignment not an aesthetic choice.

Nikolai

BrettDeutsch wrote: »

Nice work overall. Your Rembrandt and Loop lighting though are pretty close to each other. For Rembrandt, the loop below her nose should be longer so that it extends through to the shadow on the far side of her face thus creating the strong upside down triangle below the eye that is characteristic of Rembrandt lighting. Not sure why the color balance on your split light is so far off -- generally I think it's an awful lighting choice anyhow, but an assignment is an assignment not an aesthetic choice.

Hackbone

Nice job and agree with all the above. Your butterfly shadow is a little hard to see. Might need to move the light a tad more to her to accentuate the butterfly shadow under her nose.

Mike J

BrettDeutsch wrote: »

Nice work overall. Your Rembrandt and Loop lighting though are pretty close to each other. For Rembrandt, the loop below her nose should be longer so that it extends through to the shadow on the far side of her face thus creating the strong upside down triangle below the eye that is characteristic of Rembrandt lighting. Not sure why the color balance on your split light is so far off -- generally I think it's an awful lighting choice anyhow, but an assignment is an assignment not an aesthetic choice.

Nikolai wrote: »

Hackbone wrote: »

Nice job and agree with all the above. Your butterfly shadow is a little hard to see. Might need to move the light a tad more to her to accentuate the butterfly shadow under her nose.

Thanks everyone. Yup - totally missed the rembrandt. I was looking more at the highlight on her cheek than at the shadow line. Good news is that our next assigment is to repeat all 4 of the patterns with 4 different modifiers: large SB, small SB, beauty dish, and gridded bare light.

Brett - the split shot had a different treatment applied to it that was sort of a split tone look.