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

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Split light, skipping, and intense

Split light, skipping, and intense

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

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Split light, skipping, and intense

“

- Have you ever wondered how they make those really intense-looking athlete portraits, where there's light just glinting off the edges of things, and maybe there's like, sweat on somebody's skin and it looks just sparkling, and the tone of their muscles looks really great? Well this is how they do it. It's just kind of a split light and a rim light, and simply moving your camera position between the two will give you that really intense kind of gritty look. To create this kind of portrait, you should put the light on the side of your subject, and lower than you would for a head shot. You know, we don't need it to be up above and shining in, we want it to be coming straight across. Bring your light very close to your subject so that it's very contrasty, and also bring your lens in close to your subject, so that it feels like it's a very intimate picture. You can photograph them doing movements and doing poses of their intense workouts. It works great on dancers or boxers or anybody…

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