Lighting from below

I had a great conversation with someone the other day about lighting models who have lines, jowls, etc.. His advice was to shoot straight on, not high to the right like I usually start off. It made good sense, and such advice could have saved a lot of photos (how many times have I seen a beautiful woman only to discover I didn't get the beautiful woman I saw, but someone 20 years older, on film?).

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This has led me to question a lot of the rules I've used for lighting. The strictest rule I've heard is: never shoot with the light below the subject, cuz it looks satanic. But If I have a model lying on a bed or resting in a chair, I sometimes see the light coming from below in my head.

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You had to know my first post would be a freak-out over lighting rules, didn't you? Light is the crux of photography, but it's also the place I'm least willing to experiment. Sad.

I know your prob....I had a fashion class and one of the models(later

she became mah sweety) had the "bump nose"(i found out about

the sunken chest only later!)....not that you could see the bump

anytime ...just when the soft box(key etc) was at eyelevel or lower

than usual....otherwise she was incredibly photogenic if you could

work around this but it was trouble shooting and not

experimentation...I, like you, think the rules of "eye-pleasing"

lighting are much harder to break.

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p.s. (she was a cool girl, she asked me to a Black Flag concert for

our first date!)

For a real potent beauty light that fills wrinkles with light (not

shadow), the tried, true and trite ring flash can sometimes be made

to look, if not original/unique, at least surprising and lush,

especially when the background/accessories are carefully selected for

such treatment... t

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Shawn... are you really a small committee of trust funders with

nothing better to do? How many people are you, really?

ugh. the real problem is that I just might get one of those gross

things. I really like Whartenberg (sp?) and Von Unwerth's use of ring

flash (she does use rf, right?); but otherwise I find it usually

pretty gross unless you are TRYING to look like you are on

heroin...which does look cool sometimes (again ugh...)

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Deeply saturated, mid-to-light valued colours look great with rf

sometimes I think; but you gotta really USE the light as part of the

composition; anyways this is just what I 'think' since I've never used

rf myself...

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I know tom...it's like I sleep, eat, and surf greenspun and company. I

just started a full-time job ('bout blody time) so my extra time will

be a lot less about learning, a lot more about doing--more to spend on

film and models and equipment and beer and hotel rooms and flights to

the moon, real ones, not the fanciful type...well OK maybe Hamilton

I shot last night and about 2 rolls were purposely with the light

shooting up from below. I'll let you know how it turned out...

Oops. Some of the shoot turned out quite well, and some of it was just

to demonic in the lighting, giving it a fetishistic look which really

does nothing for me, since the original aim was not such (i.e., the

lighting is working against the ideas). A <i>little</i> below is

great, a <i>lot</i> I just don't seem to like.

I have used light from below in many portrait photos. My images have

been most successful when the lower light is filling-in the shadows

created by the main light that is above the subject. Take a look at

this photo (http://www.mindspring.com/~jwc3/kathrin1.JPG) to see what

I mean. Look at the reflection in her eyes -- you can see the light

from below. A lot of light from below can look more intimate, as if

you're having a candle-lit dinner with the person in the photo. If

I'm not using a light below, I usually use a reflector to fill-in the

shadows.

I'll use a big white or silver reflector for that effect, but set it

well below Eye level to fill under the chin and stay out of the

eyes. Those catchlights from your lower lights are really

distracting (to me, a photographer who pays a lot of attention to

catchlights. Maybe a non-photographer wouldn't mind)... t