Experiment with light when you create portraits. Especially take note of ways you can make the photograph more interesting by more dramatic use of light and shadow.
Sometimes you might even choose to place the main light (key light) in a position where it only adds light on a portion of a face, and allow other portions of the subject’s face and body to fall off into shadow. This is a more dramatic style of lighting that often leads to nice results. The viewer’s eye will be drawn to the light areas of the image. It might not really matter that other portions of the subject fade away in the shadows.
Also, due to a phenomenon called the “inverse square law” of light you can get a more dramatic falloff of the light by positioning the light closer to the subject. The inverse square law says that the light drops off in a very predictable way. Light decreases as in inverse of the square of the distance from the light source. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, just know the light drops off more quickly from one side of the subject to the other when the light is positioned closer to the subject.
I shot this image during one of my Light & Photography workshops Studio Lighting sessions.
Happy Picture Taking (using dramatic lighting)!
Kevin Gourley
The course ends with a session done in my studio where the participants have a chance to photograph a couple of models, putting into practice what we covered in class.
