Students often ask what the purpose is in learning studio lighting for portraits, when they really don't have an interest in setting up their own studios or portrait business. It's a great question, and easily answered. You need to know what the classical lighting setups are in order to be aware of them when they occur in nature! Even if you never work with any artificial light, it would behoove you to learn what it's all about. Many would-be photographers can recognize a good, crisp light on a building, but really couldn't tell you how it was created - how the sun and shadows play with each other to create an interesting light.
So, if you learn your studio lighting, you will be better able to spot them as they happen and take advantage of the various effects created. Your photographs will improve dramatically! Don't forget that it is really light that makes a photograph special!
There are many studio lighting setups. Here are just a few:
1.Hollywood Light:
2.Rembrandt Light
3.Side Light
4.Edge Light
5.Halo Light
6.Silhouette Light
I'm only going to concentrate on the first six studio lighting setups for this article. There are quite a few more, but once you learn them, you should be able to recognize them when you see them. To help you do this, I've included some examples of these lightings here alongside similar lightings I've found in nature
1. Hollywood Light:
The "natural" image was made from a helicopter with a 4x5 flat-bed view camera mounted on a gyroscope. I went up just at the right time for the sun to create this lighting on the famous statue. Note the telltale shadow under the nose! In the studio version, the light was simply on the other side of the face.
Learning To "See" Light
by William Lulow