From the course: Portrait Photography: Ten Styles with One Light

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Dark background and deep contrast

Dark background and deep contrast

From the course: Portrait Photography: Ten Styles with One Light

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Dark background and deep contrast

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- With a single light, it's really easy to make very moody and contrasty photographs. They have a dramatic feel and we can add a lot of feeling, using this simple single light, with bright highlights on the skin and deep shadows right next to it. To achieve this high-contrast, you simply need to get your light closer to your subject. Bringing the light closer to your subject will also help you create a soft light and that's very good because when we're in close, we don't want to reveal too much detail in the skin, it's a little unflattering. So the softer light will help ease the shadow transitions across the skin and help everybody appear to have a much better complexion than they may have in real life. This is rarely a one-and-done kind of situation, you should shoot several times. You should move your camera up and down and side to side. Have your subject turn toward the light, have them turn away. Once this light is set up, play with it, experiment and do several different…

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