Experts share lighting skills of indoor portrait photography.

The key to indoor portrait photography effect is lighting; To learn to control light, we must first understand how to control the characteristics of light, such as hardness, light ratio, color temperature and so on.

You must have heard the saying: "For indoor portrait shooting, what kind of light determines what kind of portrait you get." There is no doubt that mastering lighting skills is the most important part of shooting indoor portraits. Knowing how lighting changes and what effect it will have is the basis of learning lighting.

For portrait photography, soft lighting is always so pleasing to the eye, especially when shooting female models. The most common way to soften light is to use a soft box, but it is not easy to control the soft light effect unless you really master the law of light change.

In this paper, we focus on how to use the grid to control the light, so as to obtain a beautiful light distribution effect of human figures. For the convenience of narration, let's take a single-lamp bust as an example, and the background is a set similar to blue marble.

Starting point: single lamp direct light distribution

After we unfolded the background, we put a chair and let the model sit in front of the background, and used a studio lamp with a soft box as the only light source to direct the model's face.

The center of the light points directly at the model's face.

After arranging the lights, we took a few photos with the camera and adjusted the exposure according to the exposure effect to obtain accurate exposure data.

Soon, we got such a wonderful professional portrait. Please pay attention to the light and shadow on the model's face. The effect of a single lamp is so beautiful that it looks like an indoor portrait taken by natural light outside the window. Of course, this is just a starting point. Next, we will demonstrate how to get more beautiful portrait photos by adjusting the lighting layout.

Deflect the light a little.

Although the photos taken just now are pretty, we noticed that the model's nose shadow is too thick and the background is too bright.

Now let's move the direction of the light slightly, and the center of the light points to the front of the model. Take another picture:

This is just a slight deviation in the direction of light. You can obviously notice that the light and shadow on the model's face become softer, and the background is slightly darker because the light no longer shines directly on the background.

Now, comparing the two proofs taken in front together, we can clearly see that after the light angle is shifted, the hair on the model's right shoulder is illuminated, and more details appear in the dark part, and the contrast of the whole photo is obviously reduced.

The key to indoor portrait photography effect is lighting; To learn to control light, we must first understand how to control the characteristics of light, such as hardness, light ratio, color temperature and so on.

You must have heard the saying: "For indoor portrait shooting, what kind of light determines what kind of portrait you get." There is no doubt that mastering lighting skills is the most important part of shooting indoor portraits. Knowing how lighting changes and what effect it will have is the basis of learning lighting.

For portrait photography, soft lighting is always so pleasing to the eye, especially when shooting female models. The most common way to soften light is to use a soft box, but it is not easy to control the soft light effect unless you really master the law of light change.

In this paper, we focus on how to use the grid to control the light, so as to obtain a beautiful light distribution effect of human figures. For the convenience of narration, let's take a single-lamp bust as an example, and the background is a set similar to blue marble.

Starting point: single lamp direct light distribution

After we unfolded the background, we put a chair and let the model sit in front of the background, and used a studio lamp with a soft box as the only light source to direct the model's face.

The center of the light points directly at the model's face.

After arranging the lights, we took a few photos with the camera and adjusted the exposure according to the exposure effect to obtain accurate exposure data.

Soon, we got such a wonderful professional portrait. Please pay attention to the light and shadow on the model's face. The effect of a single lamp is so beautiful that it looks like an indoor portrait taken by natural light outside the window. Of course, this is just a starting point. Next, we will demonstrate how to get more beautiful portrait photos by adjusting the lighting layout.

Deflect the light a little.

Although the photos taken just now are pretty, we noticed that the model's nose shadow is too thick and the background is too bright.

Now let's move the direction of the light slightly, and the center of the light points to the front of the model. Take another picture:

This is just a slight deviation in the direction of light. You can obviously notice that the light and shadow on the model's face become softer, and the background is slightly darker because the light no longer shines directly on the background.

Now, comparing the two proofs taken in front together, we can clearly see that after moving the illumination angle, the hair on the model's right shoulder is illuminated, and more details appear in the dark part, and the contrast of the whole photo is obviously reduced.

Add grid

Now I am basically satisfied with the lighting effect of the model's face, but what should I do if I want to make the background darker? You can move the background back a little, but there must be enough space. Moreover, after moving the background, the ratio of scene texture to characters will change.

If you want to keep the lighting effects of the model, but don't want to illuminate the background, you need to use a grid. The grid is a grid-like attachment made of reflective metal foil. Its function is to enhance the directivity of light and keep the brightness of the main area unchanged.

It can be seen from the shooting effect that the light on the model's face and shoulders is still so soft and graceful, but the background is obviously darkened. It can be seen that the grid is a very effective accessory to control the direction of light without destroying the softening effect.

At present, the main lighting effect and background are satisfactory, but the shadows on the nose and cheeks are heavy and need to be filled with light.

Fill the shadow with a reflector.

The simplest way to fill the light is naturally to use a reflector. There are many kinds of reflectors, including white, silver, soft gold and gold. Let's take a look at the effect of using white reflector first.

We put a white reflector about two feet to the left of the model (from the photographer's point of view) to reflect the light from the soft box to the shadow of the model.

The effect was surprisingly good, and the shadow faded immediately. White reflector can be said to be the simplest and cheapest light supplement tool.

Silver reflector

Now look at the effect of the silver reflector.

We replaced the white mirror with a silver mirror.

Obviously, the silver reflector can reflect more light, and the model's hair is brighter, but the effect of color and diffusion is not much different from that of the white reflector, but the brightness is higher.

Soft gold mirror

What about the soft gold reflector?

Put on a double-sided gold reflector and try the "soft gold" side first.

Look carefully at the hair and cheeks illuminated by the reflector, and the color will be slightly warmer. This example shows that different types of reflectors can be selected according to the skin color of the model, so as to achieve unreasonable tone effect.