From the course: Portrait Photography: Ten Styles with One Light
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Controlling contrast: All about the shadows
From the course: Portrait Photography: Ten Styles with One Light
Controlling contrast: All about the shadows
- Contrast on your subject's face is also an important part of creating the mood in a photograph, and it's simply done by controlling the darkness of the dark side and the brightness of the bright side. This can be balanced with daylight. If you're using a flash on the face on one side and using daylight to fill in the shadow areas, you can increase your shutter speed and darken the daylight side, making more contrast and more moodiness. Inside the studio, when you're using artificial light only, you can alter the contrast using a reflector like this. If I've got my main light over here, then simply bringing this reflector closer will brighten the shadow side of my face, and moving it away will darken that shadow. Moving it away completely leaves me with really deep shadows that can be quite moody and dramatic. Adjusting this contrast on a face is a really powerful way to emote with your pictures, to create an emotion with them. And I highly recommend that you start playing with it…
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