Lighting For Women

hey guys today we're going to share some simple tricks on lighting women hi my name is jerry gionis i'm a wedding portrait and fashion photographer i've been photographing for 27 years and teaching for 20. i'm going to share some of that experience with you right now and share some simple tricks and tips on lighting women and how to go from this to this and don't forget please click the link below or right up here and you can actually download my portrait quick start for free enjoy okay so you have a girl in front of you where do you start how do you light her what's going to compliment her what's going to bring out a shape well here's the thing i want to first establish the way i would traditionally pose a full-length uh girl and i'll show you how we do it in this case if she stands flat-footed basically looking right at the camera so do that for me if you stand flat for a look in the camera there's sort of really not much shape we're photographing her at her widest it's not going to look that great so what we need to do is this we need to basically turn her body so turn towards me for the moment we need to point her toe towards the camera slide the heel back bend the knee in shoulders back lean the chest forward and then arch the back a little bit and for the sake of the argument put your hands on your hips so right now we have beautiful curves things are looking great but we need to also have lighting that complements the pose now traditionally for a guy and if you have a light source you would turn the guy's body towards the light source which would basically make his chest and shoulders which defines the male form towards the light source and if we bring that body part closer to the light source as well we emphasize it now with girls it's actually quite the opposite we want to turn the body away from the light source and then turn the face back in not always but mostly especially if you're photographing let's say a model um anywhere from like say a 12 13 year old and upwards and if you want to complement curves and you want to bring out the beautiful shape this is what we're going to do turn the body away from the light turn the face back in i'm going to keep on saying this until you remember it but i'm going to prove it to you why and looking at the nuances of where the light's coming from in relationship to her body and what's going to work best for her in terms of her skin and her shape and all these different things let's go to the camera and let's work this out so traditionally what we would normally do is if we see a light source whether it's an open garage door whether it's a window whether it's an actual softbox whatever it may be if we see that light source we are often tempted to turn her body towards that light source let's just turn your body towards that light source just about there perfect all right we'll take a little shot like that now although rainey's got a great figure i would say that if you have a mere mortal in front of your camera let's say who's a little bit fuller in the body let's say a bride or a girl who's a bit fuller in the body wearing a white dress or a lighter dress if you turn her body towards the light source she's going to look bigger and broader and that's going to be a problem now again rainey's got a great figure she gets away with it but we can actually bring out the best in her with some subtle changes so if all of a sudden if she turns her body now a little bit more towards me so just face me perfectly okay bring your hands down just for the sake of the argument again we're photographing her in a very flat environment okay so her legs are parted her hands are by her side it's a pretty boring way of photographing a girl but here's the thing if i want to photograph rainy front on i at least have the light coming from the side now if you can see where i am in relationship to rainy i'm actually close to the direction of light so the light is over there but i'm actually more on this angle shooting this way but what i want to do is if i shoot her directly front on you'll start to see some changes in the shadows of her body we deliberately got her to wear a small little dress and white so we can see the shadows falling on her body so let's do that okay so now i'm directly in front of her we're actually photographing her full length let's do this again so again with no finesse hands by your side looking right here all right okay so again nothing's going on there's just no finesse no nothing at all we do have light coming from the side though so my suggestion is this if you have to photograph or you want to photograph a girl front on at least have the light coming from the side now watch what happens when you look at her body and it subtly turns this way so turn that way stop there now we start to see more shadow on her body and now in fact her chest and the front part of her body are in shadow only the side of hers in light but watch what happens when we so slowly turn her stop and now we're starting to see more shadow on her body slightly different to before let's do that looking this way so if you look at the photographs that i'm showing you even a slight little difference we're bringing out some more shadow now it's going to be more evident when we actually pose her effectively so watch what happens if we actually turn her body towards a light source like we did before stop there too much come back just there good all right so now we're liking making her look bigger and broader although we are getting a shadow on this side of her body now here's what i want you to do i want you to turn her body away from the light source and the face back in as we suggested earlier in this broadcast so what i want you to do is point your toe towards me slide the heel back in bend the knee and then shoulders back hands on the hips there now very subtly i want you to keep on turning now watch rainey's going to actually turn very slowly and i want to turn to a point where i can see a shadow on her cleavage in the middle of the dress and we'll see what happens so let's start from shadow okay now very subtly keep on turning this way keep on turning stop good do this for me again just like that and now lean your upper body towards the window gorgeous and now turn your face towards that way now if you can a little bit more so turn and turn your face perfect gorgeous all right look at the difference so now we're seeing a shadow on the on her cleavage in the middle of the dress her actual bending the knees causing that shadow was basically as well and we turn her face towards a light source and it is so much better do you see what i'm trying to say it's such an easy way of photographing we often feel and our instinct is telling us the first time we ever picked up a camera whether it's an iphone a dslr we say turn your turn your body towards uh wherever the light's coming from and we photographer accordingly but now we're bringing out a beautiful curves we're bringing out some shadows and arguably more important the way the light's coming from is where we take the light away and that's those shadows so let's go a little bit closer so we understand those nuances a little bit more by photographing three-quarter okay so stand flat to the camera again okay good so we are photographing her front on but at least we have the light coming from the side so at least the shadows are giving us some depth and dimension and shape but again when we start pointing the toe towards the camera sliding that heel back bending that knee hands on the hips for example and as you can see her body just turns slightly this way stop and then lean your upper body towards the light source and then turn your face more towards the light gorgeous and now that's going to work well we often think that every part of her body has to be lit lit that's not not the case the more shadow and highlight we see the the deeper the shot becomes and the more three-dimensional it actually looks so now if we turned her body this way again we'll do it more of a close-up way so just about there standing sort of flat-footed yep and now keep your body where it is and turn your face towards me so just perfectly this way good now you can see though although rainy obviously is a gorgeous girl she's got beautiful features on her face when we use lighting coming from the side we call that split lighting lighting is on one side shadow on the other therefore it's it's considered a very masculine quality of light now i often refer to lighting almost like sweet and sour we have enough sweetness in the face and i often refer to the sourness of light like masculine light that very hard quality of light coming from the side i feel like you need enough sweetness in the face and soft features to get away with that harsh light but i'm telling you now the difference will be if we have that beautiful lighting coming uh in that direction we turn her chin or the nose towards the light to a point where both eye sockets are lit let me explain that further right now as we go a little bit closer so now that i've told you to turn the body away from the light and turn the face back in let's look at the nuances of the face and then how we can actually make the face look better based upon the direction of light and what will work especially for women okay rainy so just uh turn your face this way okay so yeah let's photograph you poorly for a moment so turn your face more that way good just there now okay so there's rainy um i love seeing rainy in bad light because it sort of makes me feel better about my own insecurities there but uh this is what we call a beautiful girl in bad light now now we might say well that's a great location therefore that's why we photograph in that in that partic particular perspective i'm saying that's not good enough what you want to do is this very gently what we're going to do now is we're going to bring her face from here and just follow my hand we're going to turn her nose towards the light source so stop keep on going stop there okay we call that split lighting okay again i think that's a very masculine quality of light i feel like if we tip on turning her nose until the eye socket on this side is actually completely lit then we're going to get a beautiful shot of her turn your face this way turn okay stop there do you see how just the corner of her eye socket needs a bit more light let's keep on going right there stop there and now tilt your head this way and then drop the chin a little bit beautiful so now i'm not after this heroic shot or anything like that but you can see the catch lights in her eyes are amazing cheekbones and jawline are looking amazing there as well that there's a huge difference between that and that so we call this short lighting short lighting is we're shooting on the short side of the face in the sense that this is the shadow side of the face and if i was to photograph it like this and turn we call this the broad side of the face this brings out character and often reserved for say masculine face like a guy a guy or perhaps if he wanted to make a skinnier girl let's say he's a little bit more gaunt in the face maybe look a little bit fuller in the cheeks but i'm yet to meet a girl who who wants to look fuller in their face than they actually are it's very very rare of that to happen so chin up a little bit tilt the face this way turn your face in that direction and that's it now remember guys when it comes to lighting it's really important to understand that posing and lighting work in harmony so if we come back a little bit and have a look at this shot from this perspective so now we're basically going to crop just underneath her bust and above her elbows it's really important to understand that so if we photograph at the peak of her bust it's a waste of a curve i would probably go directly above in this case i like to go underneath her bust and above her elbow because once you pass the elbow you feel like you want to see more of the arm this becomes a portrait of somebody so that's basically it that's how we're doing that all right very good so now let's now bring those shoulders back this one as well so bring that right back good perfect just stay there for me rainy and again we sing we're turning her body away from the light source and her face back in it's considered very feminine to do that so to bring her chin to the outer shoulder and then eyes back so looking back at me good now watch what happens if we keep her face there and we turn her body towards a light source turn your body this way stop there and then hang your face this way and then turn your face looking at me and eyes with me great so look at the difference turn the body away from the light source we get the shadow on the cleavage shadow um on on the body and the shoulder line and then we've got that beautiful shadow on the side of the face when we turn her body towards the light source it's going to be an issue and again for her she's very slim it makes it really easy but the common denominator is turn the body away from the light source and turn the face back in now what other lighting can work for a girl well certainly we could it's endless there's so many different qualities of light so many different uh styles of lighting but what would compliment her if we simply change our position in relationship to the light we're going to get a very different quality and let's do that right now so now what i've done is i've got my back towards the light source and the light is flooding in to rainy now this is going to make her skin look really soft which girls of course they love that if you're photographing say parents or grandparents they're going to love it because you are flooding in the light what you have to sort of imagine i often refer to faces like landscapes imagine as we get older we get lines in the face we get all those little nooks and crannies as we say i find like like the grand canyon you know and seeing all those lines and all that character by you flooding in the light you're filling up the canyon and you're not seeing those creases you're not seeing those peaks and valleys so depending on the person that you're photographing you want to make sure the lighting that you're using is going to complement them in this case girls want to look slim so the shot that we did previously with the shadow on the on the side of the face as close to the camera the short side the shadow side is great but in this case her skin is already flawless we're going to make it look even more flawless with flooding the light right into her like this so lean forward there for me rainy turn your body this way so i get a little bit of styling going on and then lean forward with your chin chin forward and then down a little bit and then turn your face this way good hold it there okay that's beautiful i can just change my angle here a little bit perfect okay eyes with me beautiful it's obviously quite tough with the light and and how that works but you see how what we've done is i've actually turned her face she's not completely facing the camera she's actually facing right here but she's turning her face on this particular perspective and that's giving us a little bit of shadowing on this side of the face if i wanted it more soft and more flooded she would turn her face perfectly at the camera let's do that so now turn your face this way that's it chin down and then turn your face more this way more good and then straighten up good rainy turn your face more this way that's it and turn your face there good okay perfect okay beautiful that's perfect so lights flooding through looking really good now what happens if i wanted to actually create a bit more of a shadow so here's what's happening we've got a canvas background which is dark it's not too dark but it's dark it's going to cut away light so if i tilt her face the top of her head towards that particular background we're going to create a little bit of shadow even though that we're actually going to photograph on the light side of the face does that make sense the broad side so let's do that so ready turn this way and turn good hold it there okay so if you can look at rainy there now you can see that this canvas background is cutting away light on this side of the face therefore creating a shadow on her face and eyes at me good perfect and now if i wanted a shadow on this side of the face i just simply turn her and just take your hair on from that side so that's it perfect good i'll turn your face this way and turn and then randy turn your face a bit more towards me stop there perfect awesome eyes at me good one second just resetting the focus here perfect so now we see this soft lighting we did it first of all with a little hint of shadow then we did it flat it looked fantastic then if i wanted a little bit of what we call modeling modeling as in we're creating shape and we see the silhouette her shape and depth we turned her face towards that background creating a bit of a shadow and then we did it the opposite way now really it's up to you as to which way do you prefer but the fact is that lighting for women every woman is going to be a little bit different and and if someone was to ask me what does good lighting even mean in my perspective my humble opinion is good lighting is either flattering and or it helps communicate the message you're trying to convey to the viewer in this case we're not trying to save the world without with our photographs we're not trying to show depth of character and lines and those those those wisdom lines and every line is tells a story we're just basically meant for soft and flattering quality of light of course if you were on the streets of india and you were seeing a great grandmother and you're seeing this side lighting and texture and depth and dimension and form well that's where you'd have the light coming from the side to show all that all those uh all those beautiful lines but it really it depends on what you're trying to go for but remember you want to turn the body away from the light source turn the face back in if you are standing in where the light source is and flooding through well then of course you can actually change the perspective of where the shadow is coming from by simply a tilt of the face and turning the face into a darker area now do we always feel that we can't turn the body towards a light source and what are the exceptions to that rule well let me show you now we mentioned before that it might not be a great idea to actually turn the body of the girl the model the woman the bride whoever you're photographing towards a light source now yes i feel like you can do that depending on the body type so again rainey is very slim she's got a great figure she can get away with it although i do prefer her where she turns her body away from the light source and the face back in but if i wanted a bit of a different perspective i could turn her body completely towards a light source so that i get half her body in light and half her body in shadow in that way it works better so watch this so right now what we're seeing here is her her body's facing us i want you to very gently pretend like you're on a turntable and you're turning towards the light stop there so you can see the difference there right so now we're broadlighting her she looks a little bit squarer but now if i turn her body more this way a bit more perfectly flat so side on so now i get the curves one light one side of her body is in light one side's in shadow so what i want her to do she's doing it already naturally she's actually pointing to the toe towards the camera so point that toe more towards me slide the heel back in that's it bend the knee a little bit i want you to hold your hands a bit further behind you a bit more and now i want you to lean towards the light source that's it and then bring your hands and elbows a little bit more back actually good put your hands on your hips there for me and bring your elbows back a little bit good so now what i'm basically seeing is i'm seeing a gap between her elbow and her body i can see the outline of her bust and her butt and i can see the legs in other words we've got peaks and valleys a lot more so than we did beforehand now if she turned her face towards us let's do the exact same thing with her face towards us perfect hold it there might go a little bit closer don't usually like cropping right at the ankles this in my opinion is more of a three-quarter shot so that's great so lean forward that way turn your body this way good and eyes back at me perfect hold it beautiful so there's a big difference between shifting her her weight and her body towards the light but so much so that we're now seeing an even split between highlight and shadow now how do we can combine let's say light from a garage door or light from an actual window with other supplementary lighting to give us a really cool effect let's do that all right let's turn this way okay ready for this in there for you okay so what i'm doing here to prepare for our tutorial i've got a couple of ice lights so the ice light was my invention in case you don't know um and what we're going to do is we're going to use soft light coming through the garage door again this could be likened to a soft box or a window it doesn't really matter we have this direction of light coming through this way but what we're going to do is we're going to look at the light the way it falls on her and then maybe add a bit of a hair light and possibly even a background light to give us an idea so rainy if you want to just look at me there for a moment okay so turn this way and turn your body away from the light source a bit more and then turn your face back in a bit more and then your chin to your shoulder good okay hold it there and then look at me down turn this way turn this way good i'm going to shoot just horizontally now she has blonde hair so we can easily separate her from the background it's not a problem but i find that you know if you want even more separation that's where you can introduce a hair light and then that's of course where you can introduce a background light as well depends on what you want now there is there are endless ways of doing this at the end of the day you just got to pick one all right so let's have a look so now just to remind you how we light the face let's start with your face away from the light there rainy okay so at the moment lighting is not so great on her there let's just hold that for a second now very gently i want you to turn this waist up there so right now we don't have a face completely lit but then we turn her face to a point where the eye socket her right eye socket or camera left is completely lit let's start again come from here and very slowly follow my hand stop tilt the face why do i tilt the face and turn the chin to the shoulder it adds a bit more finesse it's quite feminine remember what we said if we pose her chin to her outer shoulder and eyes back at the camera it's very feminine if you did that with a guy it would look very feminine which you don't want okay so bring your shoulders back a little bit more and your elbows back a little bit more good just want to do that perfect and then eyes at me there rainey gorgeous hold it there beautiful good all right so now we've taken that shot now let's introduce some other elements let's introduce a hair light so what i'm doing is i'm preparing an ice light at the back with some barn doors um and i want a bit of a beam of light to separate her from the background we're so already somewhat doing that the fact that she's got blonde hair great that separates her from the background automatically but a bit of hair light would add that little bit of extra you know edge and finesse to what we're doing and and look a little bit more professional uh i want to say professional i mean just you can tell that this has been lit by a a pro photographer um and right now i'm just preparing this uh to the point where we get to it so all right what we'll do so we can amplify what's going on i'll turn off the ambient lights already in this garage get it ready so we can reestablish where we were and then what we got to so turn your body a little bit away and then turn your face back in to chin to the shoulder just lean forward just bring your one foot out there that's it good and then chin to the shoulder good turn your face this way fantastic all right let's have a look at what we got here bring this left elbow back that's great and then bring your right elbow back as well good hold it there okay let's just retake that shot so just eyes at me there for me hold it there good beautiful so we've got lighting a strong direction of light on this side we've got beautiful catch lights in the eyes and then we've got a shadow on that side of the face so now what i want to do is introduce that hair light so if you can go back in that same position the important thing is guys that you do not want this light to actually touch her nose or the top of her head hair's okay but the minute the light hits the top of the head or tip of the nose it's going to look a little bit weird so draw an imaginary line from this light to where she is and then we can go there accordingly so turn your face back there so i can just tell so where it was top of your head sort of towards the garage towards the car there good all right and i think we're good right there okay so let's have a look at the difference beautiful turn your face this way for me rainy good hold it there hold it there hold it bring both elbows back your right elbow especially bit more good hold it there eyes at me now i can see the light stand from behind there and even though this is more of a tutorial than after these incredible finesse shots we're just going to get rid of it anyway great hold it there for me hold it eyes at me perfect so we see a big difference between no hair light and then with hair light i would probably dim that down a little bit so let's just come down and dim that down a couple of notches so it's on the highest power setting just use your judgment in terms of what you think looks and feels good and make sure there's detail in the hair in the back there turn the face that way again that's perfect yeah that's looking a little bit more subtle fantastic hold it there arms off the body eyes at me perfect hold it good so now we're going to introduce a light in the background so we're going to turn this light on that's going to work well for us as well let's see what we get i need that a little bit lower so let's always take your time guys um no different than a hair and makeup artist spending a lot of time with what they do why should we be rushed it's the same thing right i sort of want a bit of a glamorous look and i quite like the fact it almost looks like a spotlight too so i'm going to go closer so i can get rid of the actual light source there and take a micro shuffle this way stop there good lean this way turn your face this way again chin more to the shoulder top your head that way good eyes at me beautiful hold it there for me hold it good bring both elbows back right back and drop that arm so i can't see it that right hand perfect eyes at me beautiful hold it gorgeous and let's come a little bit closer actually hold on perfect so elbows out there raining perfect hold it there for me hold it all right so look at the difference so we just basically have light coming through again this could be likened to a window light a strobe whatever it may be a big light source coming through we turn her face until a point where we get both eye sockets completely lit that way now we get a shadow on this side of the face it's become the short side the narrow side the shadow side as we call it and then she looks back in the camera we've got beautiful catch lights in the eyes then we add a hair light we soften that light there as well and then we add a bit of a background light that bring that all together and that's what it's all about guys is just being able to complement who's in front of your camera and it look exceptional all right guys hope you enjoyed that remember of course we could have done this a thousand different ways i wanted to give you an understanding of what will complement the female form as well as the face and give you an idea that lighting shouldn't be that difficult remember wherever the light is coming from turn the body away from the light source to a point where you get a shadow on the cleavage in the middle of the dress or whatever the body type whatever it basically may be and then turn the face back into the light until you get both eye sockets completely lit remember the chin to the outer shoulder and eyes back of the camera is going to be a very feminine look if you want softer if you don't want if you want less wrinkles if you have a girl with acne or anything like that make sure the light floods from the front if you want a bit more character of course it comes from the side quite simply you always have to look at the face look at the direction of light and understand how these how these two things meet hope that gave you a really good perspective enjoy guys and remember repetition experience and practice will be your best teacher hey everyone thank you so much for watching i hope you enjoyed that video also do me a favor give me a thumbs up please subscribe and don't forget to click on that bell for notifications of future episodes also leave me a comment i'd love to hear from you answer any of your questions and stay connected and remember you don't have to be the best you just got to be better than last week you

Channel: Jerry Ghionis

Views: 104,561

Rating: 4.9459457 out of 5

Keywords: photography, portrait, lighting, female, how to light a woman, female portrait, natural light, constant light, ice light, lighting tip, lighting trick, how to light, portraiture, Jerry Ghionis, Nikon, westcott, portrait tip, portrait trick, lighting hack, light, photography tutorial, portrait training, training, tutorial, how to make someone look good, great lighting, amazing light, magic light

Id: nDuvACLu9NE

Length: 29min 30sec (1770 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021