How did he light this portrait?

<p>I like the lighting in <a href=" portrait. How do you think the lighting was achieved? Or what would you have used to achieve a similar effect?</p>

<p>The rim effect on the subject's shoulders and LH side of his head suggest an accent light or lights high and behind the subject and facing forward. The shadows on the neck suggest a keylight highto the right of the suibject. The frontal fill may have been achieved with the built-in camera flash alone (in which case the other flashes would have to be set to a low output) or by a fill-in softbox close to camera position and probably slightly higher and to the left of this.</p>

<p>Thank you, David. Do you think that the lights have been used with softboxes?</p>

<p>The rear/top rim light looks fairly hard from the shadows spilling over the shoulders - maybe a 7" to 10" silvered reflector or even a small hotshoe strobe. The other clue to the rear rim lighting is that it's shining through the subjects ears!</p>

<p>The high camera-right key (which would be in the loop position if the subject wasn't looking down) is definitely softened by some sort of diffuser - it's difficult to tell whether it's a softbox, brolly, octa or whatever. It's easy to see it's a largish diffused source because the shadows under the chin are ill-defined and soft-edged. Also the reflections on the lenshood and subject's forehead are wide and not specular.</p>

<p>There also appear to be two small frontal fills from in-line with the camera and low down, judging by the reflections in the bottom half of the lens in the subject's hands. I should think these have been positioned low to throw some light up into the shadow under the lowered chin and under the hands. Personally I'd have used an angled white reflector for that job.</p>

<p>Edit: Just read the bit about the X10 popup being used to fire the studio strobes. That explains the small frontal fill and the slight halo around the subject's nose!</p>

<p>I'm impressed, Joe. At which hight do you think he had his camera? Do you think the pop-up flash had any diffuser on it?<br /> It is the first time I have heard of an 'angled white reflector'. Sounds like a very good idea. I was impressed with the lighting on his hands.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>...it's shining through the subjects ears!</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I noticed that. But I didn't know that that meant no softboxes.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I didn't mean to say that the light shining through the ears meant that it was necessarily a hard light. Just that it was a further clue to the direction of the light, but rim/hair lighting is usually done with a hard, direct light.</p>

<p>As for camera position: That would be a pure guess on my part, but I suspect the camera was fairly high - maybe at nose level to the subject and pointed slightly down. It could be that the photographer was holding the camera at about their face level. The reason I say that is because the halo-like shadow from the popup flash appears slightly below the subject's nose. Note the hard fill shadows under the little and ring fingers as well. I've also reconsidered the reflections seen in the camera lens, and now think that the popup flash was the only front fill. The two other reflections at the bottom of the X10 lens might just be multiple internal reflections within the lens.</p>

<p>One more point. The absence of reflection from, and distortion through the "spectacles" makes me think they're a prop pair with no lenses in the frames.</p>

<p>Actually, I am going to take a slightly different view on the hair light. I suspect that it might be another softbox or stripbox due to the wide spread of the light to the ends of the shoulders and the fact that the light is so even from side to side. It may be something like a beauty dish with a diffusion screen as well, but it certainly doesn't look anything like the old traditional snooted hair lights or a bare reflector that usually leave a rapid fall off toward the sides, and a burned out area if the power isn't severely controlled.</p>

<p>Which light is high enough to highlight his thumbnails in your list of stuff, Joe ? I was thinking something specifically placed to show off the camera. I can't read your replies , as I type this, so I figure you mentioned it and I missed it.</p>

<p> </p>