Lighting for Males

hey guys today i'm going to share ideas on lighting for males my name is gerry guinness i'm a wedding portrait and fashion photographer i've been photographing for almost 30 years and teaching for 20. in this tutorial we're going to teach you how to light men and how to go from this to this by the way i have this amazing course the portrait photography quick start click on the link and download it for free enjoy all right guys so i'm here actually photographing in full sun i have no fear in photographing in full sun but it's quite tough you can see jacob's actually already struggling to actually even look at what's going on right now so i'm gonna basically ask him to just close his eyes just relax a little bit and um on the count of three look at the camera one two three okay so we've got a shot so he's struggling that's okay some people will be more sensitive to light than others that's okay now some of us may have the idea of putting our male subjects and female for that matter actually in open shade but let's have a look at what that looks like okay so come nice and close to me okay just about there okay the lighting is flat makes his skin look really good but there's really no depth and drama but i'll take it anyway let's have a look all right close your eyes a second one two open okay so we've got that one all right so on the other hand we might actually shoot in the opposite way so now we've got open shade that's reflecting back off the sun now this might be a great location but it's actually my garage but the lighting is going to be a little different still okay just there ready eyes of me okay and he's struggling still okay so many of us attempted to actually always backlight and there's not a problem with that but what you have to understand is that the light coming from behind um will never give us also a good quality of light from the front unless it's being reflected by something or we're adding in a strobe or something to that to that effect but if we're tempted to do it the easy way simply just backlight everybody then we're going to get a shot like this so he's looking at me great i get the shot so you'll see the difference between the sunlight shot the backlit sunshot then we've got the open shade and then we've got the open shade in a different area and you can sort of see that it's okay but i wouldn't really call that lighting it's just sort of like well stand there and let's hope for the best the idea is that we want to create mood and depth and dimension and character and say something about who we're photographing and that's where these lighting tips that we're going to share are going to work for you so we're in my garage my glorified studio here we have the garage door open and we have natural light basically coming through here illuminating jacob now this could be likened to whether it's actually a window light whether it is in fact a garage door being open whether it's a strobe doesn't really matter we've got a big light source illuminating our guy jacob and now we actually need to learn what are we looking for when we're photographing a guy what is considered more masculine what's considered a bit softer and feminine well it really depends on what we're trying to say and that's just it if i was to be asked well jerry what is good lighting mean i believe good lighting is either flattering and or it helps communicate the message that the artist is trying to convey to the viewer in this case you so right now we have jacob sort of facing the camera perfectly we have light coming from one side and basically what we're getting right now in my camera as you can basically see it's a very masculine quality of light now what do i mean when i say masculine masculine means it's a bit harder it's a bit contrastier in this case we have one one side of his face being lit the other side is can complete shadow so if for example we had a female face or a female form with this kind of lighting and maybe we didn't have so delicate features on that female face what happens is if you use this what i call contrast the masculine light well that would actually not be very nice and not be very flattering on that female form in like manner when we go back to the male face this guy he's a good looking dude no problem and it doesn't matter how good looking or how challenging your subjects are it's really up to you and i to bring out the best in our subjects so right now jacob is facing the camera as we said i'll get his hands in his pockets we're going to basically be focusing on head and shoulders for the moment and right now i'm just going to get you to hang your body a little bit more forward and then chin down a little bit eyes at me so no smile for this one just passive really cool and basically the way he's looking at me right now it's quite passive which is what i asked for but it almost looks like he's just looking into nowhere i find that when you're photographing anyone for that matter if you want to get a bit of mystery in the eyes uh for decades i've been saying give me a little hint of a squint that lit that's it got a bit of brow pressure there which looks really cool hold it there all right so as you can see we just have a very masculine quality of light one direction of light we've got no hair light and it looks really really cool now do i turn his body and his face towards the light and if so what does it do so remember we have one direction of light he's looking into the camera one side of the face is being lit one side is not i'll often get asked the question jerry when i'm lighting a guy when i turn his face towards the light when do i stop well let's try this so what i want you to do mate is i want you to turn your face this way and turn okay so we'll come to what this lighting situation is all about in a moment but what i want you to do is we're starting on the light side of your face so i can see more skin than i can see shadow so more of your face is in light than it is in shadow what i want to do now is i'm going to get to the top of your head towards the light stop there and now i want you to turn your face keep on turning keep on turning stop now as you can see when i'm actually looking at him i've turned his face until the eye socket that's closest to the camera which now has become his left eye or our camera right i stop his face until his complete eye socket is completely lit now you might say why are you so particular by saying eye socket well if he turns his nose this way so turn turns stop now that shadow is cutting into his eye depending on the face and how attractive the face is then it depends on how far we can get away with it my suggestion is either get the eye completely lit or not so before if you remember we had his face half lit and half knot in this case i start with his face away from the light let's do that and now jacob turn your face towards the light very slowly slow slow follow by hand follow follow and now i can just see the corner of his eye completely lit that's where i stop now that makes me shoot on the shadow side of his face often referred to as the short side or the narrow side or i call it the sexy side and then we just simply shoot in that way perfect so if you look at the difference we've got straight um a photograph with split lighting lighting on one side not the other then we're actually shooting him on the short side of the face what we'll do is i'll actually just shoot you with a passive look so turn your face this way again turn your face that way good good hold it there perfect so as you can see i've turned his face towards the light until his this eye socket that was in shadow is completely lit why do i stop when the eye socket is lit because now i get that beautiful depth and dimension of his cheekbone and his jawline and life is good so now that i'm shooting him on the shadow side of the face would this shot look good shooting him on the light side of his face often referred to as the broadside i actually quite like it for guys especially with the slim face like jacobs so what we're going to do now is we tilt your face we are going to do split lighting but we're going to do split broad we're shooting with one side of your face being lit but you're turning your face this way and then our eyes back at me you can see how the quality of light is a little bit different on his face okay so chin a little bit more down down this way good eyes at me really cool hold it there mate hold it hint of a squint awesome hold it very cool so you can sort of see how this shot looks really cool being the broadside it makes him look fuller in the cheeks but it brings out a lot of character he gets away with it because he's got a slim face if we go back to the other one that looks really cool that short side of the face and then of course you've got the split side now what happens if we photographing him front on with a good quality of light well that'll be less descriptive his skin will look even even smoother than it already does because he's young he's a young guy but you will see the difference as we do it so now what i've done is i've actually placed myself where the light is coming from so in this case the garage door being open this could very much be the same as me standing in front of a window and positioning my subject right over here and then facing facing him with the light and of course my camera now you'll notice that it's softer on the skin great it's less descriptive but depending on the nature of what you want this might be what you need for example if you're photographing maybe parents or grandparents with aging or mature skin this might be the direction that you want to go for if you want to actually photograph texture and depth and dimension then lighting coming from the side as we basically did before that will bring out more shadows which will actually give you that drama right now there's no drama we're just doing clean portraits looking at the camera let's just do that right now okay eyes with me mate just passive is called good hold it good nice clean portrait it's okay it's nice um and i guess that's all it is it's nice and it's safe for me even more important than lighting is actually shadows in this case i don't get any shadows really whatsoever maybe a little bit underneath this jawline because the light's sort of coming from from up high let's see what happens when he turns his face one way or the other so let's just turn your face a little bit this way turn now you can see how very subtly he actually turned his face to the background and the background is quite dark so it cut away light that is actually going to look really good for him because now we're adding depth and dimension where we we didn't normally if he for example was in open shade open shade is in the shade of a building or a house and he was facing outwards towards a light source it would be no different than seeing a result like we just had a second ago which you can see right here but if we turn his face to something dark like a wall or even tilting his face more to the ground the ground and or the wall cuts away the light adding a little bit of shadow by simply angling his face let's do it the other way and see what happens okay so turn your face that way good turn that's it just there awesome man hold it there good so we got a similar result why because actually we're shooting in the inside the garage here my exposure is set for the quality of light coming through and then all of this there's the ambient light it's not really giving it much light anyway so i quite like the fact that if we have to photograph front on or if we're tempted to simply angling the face one way or the other against a darker object then that's going to give us a little bit of depth dimension and form so for example if you're photographing someone with a fuller face with bad bad skin maybe a bit of acne this might be the great way to do it because you're shooting with softer light as in light coming from where the direction of the lens and the camera is the photographer light is flooding onto the subject therefore it's less descriptive we're not describing shape and we get beautiful skin but now when we tilt his face we add a little bit of shadow so for the plus size guy for example we're cutting away light in some ways by turning his face but we're adding the softness of the light coming through which is probably a good balance of that particular subject matter now let's change our lighting situation and add just an extra element of light and see what we get so i'm going to move in this direction and jacob i'm going to get you to stand right there for me let's have a look lighting on you very nice and let's adjust and play so what i'm doing here guys is i'm actually uh going to use two ice lights for those of you don't know i'm the inventor of the ice light and i'm very very proud to say that sort of in most photographers camera bags which is really cool and what we're doing here is we're going to use one ice light to first of all to separate him from the background and then we're going to also use a light on the background to just add a little bit of drama and depth as well for that really masculine quality of light this so barn doors are basically a way of cutting away light so think of it like this light travels in straight lines so if your light source is over here it's going to travel in straight lines and it's going to illuminate anything and it's basically path now what i want to do is i want to create a beam of light on that background to basically bring the viewer's eye in this case you the viewer's eye right into my subject matter um and it's gonna look really cool if i just put the light on the background the whole background will be lit but i want this beam of light leading your eye into the actual photograph so i'll be using this in a moment first of all i'm going to photograph a portrait of jacob just with the natural light coming through again that could just be a big soft box that could be a big window light it could be a garage door that's open doesn't really matter we just need a direction of light that's actually illuminating um our subjects and then of course we're going to refine and chop and change and get different looks and really there's when i say there's no right or wrong yes you can be more flattering yes you can be more purposeful but more importantly you got to do what suits what you're trying to say in this case i just want to make him look freaking really cool simple as that so actually let's get jacob in the darkness and you'll see the quality of light change on him as he comes closer to the light so let's just start you over this way mate okay so he's basically in the shadows all right so now as we bring him closer just walk really slowly slowly nice and slow towards the window or in this case the garage door of course stop there perfect so he's wearing black he's also a brunette so he's just sort of blending into the background personally i think that's okay i quite like dramatic sort of shots like that i don't feel like i always have to have a light separating him from the background but it's pretty cool too as well so let's try a few different ways so first we'll do a shot let me have a look here now what we can see here is there's split lighting but there's a little bit of light touching the other side of his face consistent with what you've probably heard called rembrandt lighting rembrandt lighting is either when either one eye or both eyes are in shadow and it's considered a very masculine quality of light so turn your face this way actually turn your shoulders towards the light it's a really good tip as well guys that whenever you're photographing a guy if you point his body towards the light source it's going to make him look bigger and broader whereas with a female form you turn the body away from the light source and the face back in but for the guys turn the body towards the light and and the face towards the light as well bigger and broader we turn his face like we said before until the eye socket that was not lit is completely lit so that's it turn this way good eyes at me really cool hold it there okay so as you can see there now it's nicely lit the background's pretty dark it works well but let's add some depth and dimension and now we're going to add a continuous light in this case the ice light as a little bit of an edge light it's going to hit a bit of his jaw it's going to hit a little bit of his hair and let's see what happens from this particular angle i draw imaginary line from this light source to his face if this light can hit his nose it's going to look weird so what i do is i position myself where i can just miss his nose and then i bring the light source a little bit higher i'm going to turn it on and that's going to separate him from the background and then just add that little cool professional touch okay let's have a look yeah that looks really good it's cool because it adds a little bit of a hair light to the equation as well cool man hold it there so this this case just looking passive good hold it let's look at the difference now so you've got no hair light no edge light with and i think we can actually honestly say that looking at this this looks like the more professional kind of quality of light you wouldn't get this from an amateur just wouldn't happen but this is the cool thing you might not have an ice light you might not have a big strobe all this has to be is some light source in this case a window or a garage door being open this could also be another window over here so remember if you've ever got a if you ever walk into an environment where there's two windows put your subject in the corner turn their face the light open up the blinds behind them and now you've got this beautiful uh hair and edge light and then you've got this sort of main light source as well now this could even be a an iphone light for it for all you know so let's leave that there so now what i'm going to do is i'm going to come nice and close to this background turn this light on you see how it gives us a really really cool beam so i want that separating him even further from the background but leading your eye into the shot so i'm bringing this light closer to the background so i basically see more contrast i see more an obvious highlight and more of an obvious shadow it's going to be out of focus but we will see the difference that's really important actually quite like that little beam of light it's got that very he's got a very how do i say a really sort of cool hollywood kind of a look and i quite like the fact that the lights coming from the top and instead of beaming down almost like a spotlight and then you've got that uh that light hitting his hair and hitting his jawline which looks really cool and i'm going to bring this even closer to him so i can get a bit more contrast again draw an imaginary light between him and his nose make sure it doesn't touch it otherwise you'll see the light on top of his nose so it's going to look a bit weird and now so lean forward turn your face this way good eyes back at me all right chin down a little bit good hold it there chill down more chin down more good hold it man hold it good don't move just like that hold it and there you have a huge difference between the three in fact let's do it live so you can see it okay so stay there for me don't move an inch so we're going to turn these lights off so now inside inside my camera you can see that the lights falling on nicely let's start from the beginning turn your face away so now we turn the face to a point until his eye socket right there tilt turn stop eyes back at me good okay so now we've got his face nicely lit it's not touching his ear notice too that we can't see his left ear watch this turn your face this way more stop you see how his left ear is popping out it can look a little bit weird either i get the ear all in or all out in this case all out stop it's less distracting so keep on looking at the camera watch what happens we turn this light on boom separates him from the background and then even further adding depth and dimension we add this light that gives us a really cool feel as well and now we add a little bit of finesse to the to the overall expression so give me a little hint of a squint and looking out this way yeah that's awesome dude hold it there hold it perfect i love the fact that your eye leads in from the light from the background leads into the subject of course now the light the second light the ice light that's closest to him separates him from the background catch lights in the eyes we've got shadow depth and dimension and form it's a really cool way of actually photographing a guy so remember guys lighting doesn't have to be that difficult start with one light simply turn the face towards a light source until both eyes are completely lit now you know you've got the right light on them make sure the actual catch lights in the eyes are in the 10 or 2 o'clock position that's when you know you've got a good direction of light and all you have to do is simply just actually add the expression whether it's actually a little hint of a squint looking away looking down having some fun whatever it may be but every good photograph starts with really beautiful lighting that's flattering to the subject and meaningful and purposeful for who you're photographing so remember photographing men doesn't have to be difficult practice practice practice thank you so much for watching hope you liked the video and if so please give me a thumbs up don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell to get notifications for future videos please leave a comment so we can connect and i can answer any of your questions see you in the next episode and don't forget you don't have to be the best you simply have to be better than last week we'll see you soon you

Channel: Jerry Ghionis

Views: 71,960

Rating: 4.9835896 out of 5

Keywords: how to light men, photography, portrait, male portrait, lighting, flash, constant light, natural light, jerry ghionis, wedding photography, photographing men, headshot, headshot lighting, nikon, ghionis, wedding, portraiture, lighting tricks

Id: Pbd1DCEjlIw

Length: 22min 3sec (1323 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 03 2021