The first shooting in the studio was conducted in small groups. There were several sets and the aim was to play with the different lightings. First, I decided to replicate a Rembrand lighting scheme as it is something that can be achieved with a single light and it is visually appealing.
The lighting diagram we used can be found below:
First, I did measure the light with a lightmetre. As we started with a single light, the contrast was really high (16:1, 4 steps with the darkest area at F2 and the lightest area at F8). F8 was the setting for the camera. Some of the photos taken with this approach can be found below:
The most successful photograph was the last one as there is a high contrast but a clear triangle shape in the face, typical of a Rembrandt portrait:
We did some other tests, placing the light more frontal to the face so that the background could be lighted as well. As it can be seen below, the Rembrand effect dissapears by changing the location of the light:
After that, we went back to the Rembrandt lighting scheme but added a second light to highlight the background. The lighting diagram can be found below:
To light the background we used a barndoor and we kept the beauty dish. We used the barndoor to separate the subject from the background. The barndoor was set up at F8 to ensure that it could appear grey the profile of the subject, as the camera was set up at F8. The final photographs can be found below:
As part of the brief for this assignment is focused on anonymous portraiture, I did remember the lighting of the film The Godfather (1972) by Gordon Willis who did placed the lighting above the characters to conceal the characters’ eyes.
To get this effect, I placed the light above the person, which is something that may provoke different effects in beauty photographs. For example, it may highlight the cheeks but if done on an extreme way can make the person older. The test to get the effect can be seen below:
The most succesful photograph is the last one, as the eyes were completely concealed:
After that, my classmates started playing with the lights as well and they produced the following photographs:
After that, we continued shooting with the badger lighting scheme, which can be found below:
Some of the test trials can be found below:
The photograph with a clearer effect was the following one: