Two lights, a roll of black paper and a portrait built from scratch: here’s how I light a moody studio portrait, and why I make each decision as I go.

There are thousands of videos that will tell you where to put your key light. This one is about the thinking behind it. Why black paper rather than grey. Why I brought in a second light, and why I stopped when I did rather than pushing on for one more idea. Though (of course) I DID have one more idea – it turns out you can never have too many! Lizzie has been stepping in front of our cameras since she was sixteen, which is somehow ten years ago now, and her sister Katie is the one behind the camera filming. So there’s rather a lot of laughing in this one, and I make no apologies for it.

We start with a blank wall, a lovely model and absolutely no plan. By the end there’s a picture I genuinely love… and a second one I’m still not sure about (I still love it but making decisions is hard!) Tell me which you prefer in the comments, because I honestly can’t decide.

I’ve written up the lighting and the process here if you’d prefer to read rather than watch.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Why we do what we do
0:56 Meet Lizzie
1:36 Reactive or prescriptive: two ways to work
2:21 Bringing the mood down without losing the laughter
3:13 Light one: a 1m softbox as a window
4:14 Camera left or camera right?
5:32 Reading the histogram before you commit
7:24 Rolling down the black paper
10:04 Why I don’t finish the picture in camera
11:39 Light two: strip box, grid and a rim of light
13:15 The shot I’d keep
14:54 Variations, crops and one more idea
15:56 Short side or broad (and when to stop pushing)
18:24 Why we work this way
19:11 Where to find more
20:12 Outtakes

THE KIT

Key light: Elinchrom FIVE strobe with a 1m square softbox, set around power 4
Rim light: Elinchrom FIVE strobe with a 30cm x 1m strip box with a grid, low power
Background: black paper roll
Camera: Nikon Z9, Nikkor Z 70-200mm f/2.8, f/11 at 1/160, ISO 100

TRANSCRIPT

OK there are one or two fruity words in this episode. If you’re offended by swearing then I do apologise!

Have you ever wondered how a portrait photographer thinks, works, and asks themselves why and how they’re going to create the next photograph?

I’m Paul, and in this video I’m going to show you some of the process of why you do what you do, how you think about it, how you approach a shot from just having a beautiful model in front of you with a blank wall, all the way through to a beautiful finished image. And we do this day in, day out.

We meet a client, we decide what we’re going to photograph, we create those images. But there’s actually a process to it. It’s not always logical. It’s not always what you expect. But every single time you start with an interaction and you finish with a picture. And that’s what these videos are about – the whole process of how we do it. I’m going to talk you through it, I’m going to show you how we do it, and at the end of it, hopefully, you’ll get an appreciation of just how portrait photographers think and work.

One of the great joys of portrait photography is I get to meet the nicest people. Here’s Lizzie. We’ve been photographing Lizzie since she was 16 years old, which feels like a lifetime ago – ten years ago. One of the nicest people on the planet, and as it happens, I work with her sister Katie, who’s behind the camera right now. I love that. I love the fact we get to meet people, get to know people, and have a lot of fun.

But when you’re photographing someone, you have to piece together the bits of the puzzle. You have to read their outfits, their hair, their makeup – a little bit of… apparently this is called cat eye. And you can go in multiple directions. If you’re going to do something prescriptive, you can do that. If you’re going to do something reactive, you can do that.

For me, I’m a reactive photographer. I’ve always been that way. I will meet someone, walk in, have a look at their face, their hair, their colouring, their outfit, the way they sit, the way they stand, and I’m just trying to figure out how to create a sequence of shots. Here, we’re just going to create one, but we’re going to build it. I’m going to figure out what it is I want to do.

Right now, having spent a little bit of time chatting with the team, I think we’re going to do something really dark and moody, just to play off the fact that her skin and beautiful colouring, her hair is really dark, dark top. She has really smiley eyes, so we can play off that. I’m sure that if we get the lighting right, her eyes will show that character.

One trick, by the way, if you’re going to do moody photographs – don’t just keep everything moody. Everybody has their own character, your own character as a photographer, as a person. If you’re upbeat and energetic, you’re going to have to learn how to bring it down. If you’re downbeat and quiet, you may have to learn how to bring it up. You have to work on the other side of your natural line all the time.

For me, I’m usually fairly high energy, certainly when we’re photographing and certainly when we’re filming. My trick is I can keep everything going very high energy, and then when I want the photograph, we’re going to have to bring the mood down. We’re going to have to do it carefully, because what I really want is for it to feel moody, sexy, sassy – whatever words you want to use – but I still want laughter in Lizzie’s eyes. To do that, we’ll do the whole thing fairly high energy, and then make a deliberate decision to bring it down.

Let’s start to piece together the lighting.

We’re going to use a great big softbox, as this is, for me, the most reliable way of lighting a person. Big, soft light source, a one-metre square softbox – in this case, an Elinchrom. Just something solid that I can move around.

With the lighting in this room, we’ve got the lights up so that you can see what’s happening. Normally, I’d work with just the modelling lights on the softbox, on the strobe.

My start point is nearly always the same thing. Light off to the side. I like window light, so that’s always in my head. That’s where I came from. I came from photographing people in pubs. Don’t ask me why, a misspent childhood. Small windows, pubs, pint of beer, photograph, film, 50 millimetre, very happy. And I’ve brought that into the studio.

There are videos on our website you can go and watch that are all about the analogy of a square softbox to window light. That’s my home base. That’s where I’m going to start. What I’m then going to do is read the shape of Lizzie’s face. I want to look at where her hair falls, where it’s natural, and I’m wondering actually whether we light… Normally, I would light camera right, but that’s just because of the shape of our studio. There’s no other reason for it. There’s no psychology here.

I’m going to move the lights around and see what it looks like camera left, which will upset Katie because we’ve set everything up to be camera right.

Yeah, I think I’m right. And the reason I think I’m right – let me see if I can show you. Yeah, beautiful, actually. Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound surprised. Oh, look, beautiful.

I’ve set the light to about four, which is mid-range. Every light, every modifier is going to give you a different setting. Distances are going to change it. I just know that if I set it at about mid-range, about four on the Elinchrom scale, and set the camera up to about F9…

Turn again slightly and look down at the base of that light stand, and then bring your face around to me a little bit.

I’ll show you the back of the camera, but we’ll pop that in from the feed into the video. What I’m doing at this stage is looking at the histogram, firstly just to check I’ve got my exposure about right. We’ve got other videos on how to read your histogram – go and refer to those. But what I’m looking for is to make sure no highlights are blown out, no shadows are blocked up, and I’ve got a ton of room to play with that image later on.

For me, I think that is close to the money. It’s just a little bit bright, so I’m going to add a little bit of extra aperture. When you’ve got a studio backdrop wall, it doesn’t really matter what my depth of field is. I’m not trying to get one eye in focus and one eye out of focus. F8, F9, F10, F11 – it makes very little difference. Your sweet spot for the sharpest optics is going to be around F9, F10, F11. We’re now at F11.

Focused in on Lizzie’s eye, and I can just see my histogram now. That’s spot on. You can see there’s a gap on the left-hand side. There are no blacks. It’s not crunched up in the shadows. On the right-hand side, there’s space for the whites to breathe. Nothing’s overexposed. That histogram, at this distance for this shot, is about right.

Now I can start making other decisions. It’s a nice enough shot. Lizzie looks amazing as a headshot. What I’m really liking is the way the face is lit the strongest. You can see there’s shape to it. It’s lit technically…

I know from videos where we try not to use the names of lighting patterns, but it’s so useful. So here you can see this is technically short side lighting. No reference to Lizzie’s height. It’s all to do with the way the light is coming from this side of the face, which is the shorter side when you’re looking at it from camera position, which is more or less your viewpoint as well.

What I need to do now is figure out where the mood of this shot is coming from. Remember, I’m building a shot. This isn’t the finished thing, though actually, it’s not a bad starter.

I think what I would do is run a black paper backdrop and darken the whole shot down. Although not much light is hitting the backdrop, I’ve got no grid on this light. And for those of you who love your grids, that’s great too. If I had a grid on it, the background would be that much darker because there’d be even less light striking it. So we’re going to roll the black paper backdrop down.

From a logic point of view, why black paper when I don’t really want it to be jet black? Well, the reason is very simple. To do the filming, we’ve pushed everything towards the back of the studio. So if I use a grey paper, which is normally where I’d head when I want that kind of dark richness, a grey paper is probably going to be a little bit bright. What I’m thinking is if I can just get enough light to bounce off the black and lift it away a little bit – and remember, we’re still using just one light at this point – I’m still building the shot, still trying to figure out what it’s going to be.

Turn just a little and look down that way. Thank you. Perfect.

Okay, so there’s my shot. If we look at the histogram on this shot, what you can see is that the blacks aren’t blocked up. I haven’t changed the positioning of the lighting or Lizzie, so the histogram, other than the background having changed, is still intact. But has the shot got what I’m looking for? Not yet. We’re getting there. We’re just going to zhuzh it around a little bit.

So what I’m going to do – just turn a little bit further. Good. I’m going to roll the light back a little bit and see if I can just get a little bit more light onto the paper. Not easy to do when we’ve lit the studio up. Normally I’m working off just the modelling light, so I can see it a little bit easier.

We’ve just popped a little bit more light into the background. We’re kind of getting there. We’ve got a really nice vibe to the image. The black in the background is just about right. It feels like there’s some tone in it, which I know I can then treat later.

A big part of the puzzle when you’re doing this isn’t to finish the image in camera. That was the tradition with film, of course, because you really didn’t have a lot of latitude downstream. Here in digital, though, what we’re trying to get to is that beautiful sweet spot where I’ve got all of the data I need. I use the term correctly – this is maths, this is data. I need all of that data to be able to put it into Photoshop, into Lightroom, and work the picture up later.

My job right now is to get enough magic in camera that I’m excited and feeling it, but I don’t want to finish it in camera. I want it to be perfect – a perfect capture. No blacks, no whites, a nice set of tones, everything I can use later in post-production. It’s close. I’m getting there.

I think we can possibly just open up the exposure. I’m going to take it open a stop to F10. That’s a little bit better. Let me just check that highlight. There’s no highlight flashing.

There are a couple of different ways to go here. You can make a decision about whether you want this side to be dark and emerging out of the shadows, or whether you want just a little bit of light to shape it and add a little bit of quality in a different direction. Both are valid. There’s no right or wrong answer here.

Our studio walls, if you look at that previous shot I’ve taken, are kicking a little bit of white light into it. I could put a studio flat up, but frankly I’d have to move Katie, the TV, the video recorder, and a whole heap of things. So instead of using a big studio flat, which is one of the options, I’m just going to bring in a second light.

Now, of course, if you only have one light in your studio, use a studio flat or move everything closer to a wall. Both of those will work.

I’m going to start at really low power. I’m using a strip box on this one. Notice here I’ve got a grid on the front of this light. You don’t have to use a grid. If you don’t use a grid, all you’re really going to do is run a risk of getting flare. The light’s coming towards the camera, and you’re going to clip the edge of your lens and it’s just going to flare up a little bit. That might be the look you’re going for. Here I’m using a grid to try and keep that to a minimum, given that the light is actually pointing towards where I’m going to take the photograph from.

I’m just going to throw in just a little touch of light. I’ve got enough room to have that fairly close in and just create a little bit of rim light around the edge. Let’s see what that looks like.

Perfect. You can see I’ve just introduced that really lovely, just a touch of light around the edges. It just creates that separation. What I might do is lift that light up in the frame a little bit, because where the hair meets the shoulder, that’s still a little bit dark. I’m just going to lift that up a tad.

Okay. Beautiful shot. And what we’ve just done by lifting the light – I’ve not changed its power, I’ve just changed its position ever so slightly – and now it’s cutting into Lizzie’s hair and across the shadow on her shoulder. And now that is pretty much a finished picture.

At that point you’ve got a really good foundation picture, and I can make some decisions. Do I want to vary it? Do I want to leave it? Normally I play around with it just a little bit. But the thing is, Lizzie looks absolutely fantastic. Probably I’ve nailed it. Sorry, that sounds awful. Can I reword that?

Lizzie looks fantastic. Probably there are many more shots we could get. You’re happy with this? I’m really happy with this. That’s a beautiful shot of you.

Just going to turn you slightly more that way, and a bit more sass in the pose, please. This way or this way?

Perfect. There you go. That’s just fine-tuned it a little bit.

It just has a really nice quality to the image. The histogram is bang on the money. He says, checking the histogram is bang on the money. The histogram is bang on the money. That’s like making a prediction and then checking it later.

That for me is at least one of many you could do. But you’ve seen how we’ve taken the process, stepped our way through it, laughed our way through most of it, and come up with the most beautiful shot.

I’m going to take a couple of variations. I’m not really changing anything now. The lighting’s going to stay as it is. Lizzie’s going to stay in position. We’re just going to play off it a tad.

I’m shooting everything wide just because this is going onto YouTube. We’re building this for YouTube, so we’re shooting everything wide. My instinct really is to possibly shoot as a tall, which also works really well. But for the constraints of YouTube, I’m going to keep everything in wide format.

Just drop your chin, bring your shoulder up. Chin, shoulder.

Thank you. There you go. Every one of these shots will be absolutely beautiful. You can step in really tight, which I also really love – just that really tight, punchy crop. All of these things are now possible.

Turn round the other way. Let’s just see what it looks like if we go broad.

Let me just have a quick look. Yeah, that’s nice. That has a real theatrical look about it. But I don’t think, without reshaping the light, it’s got quite the quality that we had a second ago. If I just bring the light forwards a little.

Yeah, it’s nice, but I think I got it right the first time. And one of the tricks is knowing when you’re just overworking the shot. Don’t need to press any further. I got it before, though actually, you have the most beautiful jawline.

Have I? Maybe I’m…

Oh, let’s just try. Stay exactly where you are, don’t move. Not that you were. Let’s just see. Maybe there is a shot here. Maybe, just maybe.

Just bring your shoulder around a little. Shoulder up. Slight squint. Just a little. Okay, shoulder down.

What’s quite nice about this shot is I’ve lit it broad. I know we try not to use all these words. The light is coming from the broad side of the face. Lizzie’s looking that way. This to camera is the broad side of the face – the wider side – and I’ve lit across that way.

For someone like Lizzie, who’s got a beautiful figure and beautiful face shape, that’s fine. Sometimes you’re trying to make a face look narrower for your client, in which case lighting the short side is probably better. It has a natural tendency to make the face look slightly narrower.

Here, though, two things are working in our favour. Lizzie’s really slender in the face, and her jawline is to die for. It’s just this beautiful sweep. Go and look at classical paintings – this is a typical lighting pattern. And then that supporting light coming in from camera right is doing a really nice job of just illuminating her a little. Notice how subtle it is. It’s also throwing a tiny amount of light onto that camera right side of Lizzie’s face. I do not know at this stage which of the two pictures is the better.

I still think my instinct was the first one, before we switched it around, but nonetheless, it shows just how adaptable things can be.

In this video, we’ve shown really simply how we started with just a blank background, Lizzie standing in front of the camera, and just reading the situation and working our way into this beautiful image. You can see it’s really simple, once you start to understand why. Why do you do things? Why do you move the lights around? Why do you place things? Why do you read someone’s figure, and their face, and their hair, and their colour? You do it so that you can get to where you want to go. That’s why we work on understanding all of the components.

If you want to understand more about portraiture, why not head across to masteringportraitphotography.com, which is simply full of ideas, pictures, lighting diagrams, and articles, and of course is the home of the Mastering Portrait Photography podcast. Whatever you do, please subscribe to this channel – you can do that down below. We’d love to see you again next time we release a video showing just how we do what it is we do.

Whatever else, be kind to yourself. Take care.