Lighting Applications & Variations

This is not a general-purpose lighting.  Using selective lighting, you can light those areas that you want to emphasize,  and keep the rest of the scene in shadow.  It's an approach that is very effective for environmental portraiture.  For instance, an environmental portrait of a musician can be very effective with just the face and instrument lighted.  

Caution

While flare and the sources that produce it are often intentionally introduced  in advertising photography, in many instances you'll want to block light from rim lights that could flare into your camera lens.

Lighting Diagram 4.4

Example Portrait 3.4

 The Lighting Setup

The  lighting apparatus used for this portrait is shown in the in the lighting diagram below.  A 7" flash head  fitted to an old and gutted  2000 watt focusing Fresnel served as the main light and was positioned high and to the left of the subject.  Two lights were placed behind the subject at shoulder level,  and positioned at the left and right edges of the 12' wide dark purple/brown muslin to produce the rim lighting.  The left rim light was fitted with four-way barn doors and the one on the right a medium grid.  Two flags fashioned from black foam board and clamped to light stands were placed between the rim lights and the camera lens to avoid flare.  An additional standard head with a medium grid was positioned to the right and pointed at the hands.  All lights were set to produce nearly equal incident readings.