Best Techniques for Creating Dramatic Lighting in Portraits
As a portrait photographer, you can use light to create the right atmosphere. When you use dramatic lighting, you’re communicating a mood and intentionality. Dramatic portraiture makes the image stand out by creating contrast, interest, and mood. It will also help you shoot attention-grabbing photography.
Here is the list of techniques for creating dramatic lighting in portraits:
1. Creating Hard Light
Hard light has a little transition between highlight and shadow. This light is created from small or distant light sources. Finding hard light is as simple as going outside on a sunny day. A window with the sun directly outside will also create hard light. You can also create hard light with the use of artificial light sources like strobe lights and flash heads.
2. Creating Focused and Patterned Light
Creating light that’s only on a small area of the image adds more drama to a photograph. Using a lighting modifier can help create a focused or patterned light. A grid, snoot, or barn doors can be used to focus the widespread of the light from a strobe or flash. They can help to prevent the
light from hitting the background and creating more contrast. You can also use them to draw attention to a specific part of the image.
3. Creating Contrast
Contrast refers to the difference between the darkest and lightest areas of the image. You can use hard light and a modifier to prevent the light from also hitting the background. This helps to create contrast. There are also additional ways that an African-American woman photographer can use to create contrast in a photo.
You can deepen the shadows by using a negative fill. Placing a black reflector on the shadow side of a portrait will increase the shadows. You can also increase contrast in post-processing. Brightening the highlights and darkening the shadows will create more contrast.
Wrap Up-
Mixing hard, focused or patterned light with contrast can help to create dramatic light. Dramatic images should have at least one of these elements. Creating dramatic light can really help to bring something special to an otherwise ordinary shot of your subject’s face, so be sure to give it a go.
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