Glamour with a Fetish Twist

Unless you've lived most of your life in a cave, most of us have grown up watching movies. Since the early days of movie-making, cinematographers have--amongst other photographic and cinematic techniques--communicated with audiences by utilizing a variety of lighting schemes. Going to the movies can sometimes be an education in mood and emotion expressed through lighting techniques and styles.

We all recognize horror movie lighting. One of its hallmarks is, for instance, having light sources coming from below or from some other odd place. Another way is by emphasizing shadow. If you want to make an audience feel a bit uneasy, have them sense that something sinister or dangerous or ominous is about to unfold, or turn the world into a generally scarey and creepy place, one way to facilitate that sensation in the minds and imaginations of the audience is by using dramatic and unconventional lighting-- Unconventional in that the scenes in the movie contain lighting gags or gimmicks that are far removed from the way we experience and perceive light in our daily lives.

The sun shines from above. A lot of the artificial light sources that light our daily lives also shines from above: Lights in the ceiling, overhead lamps, street-lights, etc. We are subconsciously and routinely aware of where the light in our daily lives emits from. That's why the vast majority of conventional studio-lighting utilizes a key or mainlight that is set above the subject, often at about 45º to one side and 45º above the model.

If, suddenly, our world of light is turned upside down, i.e., the light seems to come, mysteriously and without explanation, from below or from other unusual places or, seemingly, from nowhere, we know something just ain't right. That's what cinematographers often do when they're lighting scarey movies.

A few of these oddball lighting techniques and styles sometimes lend great impact to people photography and even to images related to glamour photography. Certain forms of fetish or fetish-like photography is a good example. In other words, these dramatic lighting styles can be quite provocative in a dark and almost evil and foreboding, yet sexy, way.

The model in the images in this post is Monica. I've shot Monica a few times and, at one of those shoots, Monica came to the studio with some fetishy wardrobe.

When I saw Monica in her black-leather, S&M-ish outfit, I knew I had to make the lighting more dramatic and unusual. I also knew I'd be borrowing from a Hollywood cinematographer's bag of tricks to accomplish this.

But I also wanted to capture Monica as the sexy woman that she is.

That meant I'd apply a bit of that Hollywood scarey movie lighting style to her but I'd also tone it down a bit and still use some standard glamour lighting. I wasn't trying to turn this beautiful and erotically-charged model into a vampire or a demon but her wardrobe smacked of that so I wanted to create just a bit of a netherworld feel to the images.

I figured a good way to do that would be to place my mainlight at about a 45º angle coming from below rather than overhead. I also wouldn't fill the dark side with a reflector or a source and let the shadows become emphatic. Adding highlights with a strip-box (on the key side) and an overhead hairlight provides both separation from the background as well as the kinds of hot highlights that are often customary in glamour photography.

Monica is very experienced in front of a camera. I knew her raw sexuality would still shine through the darker elements of the lighting and I also knew she would understand how she was being lit and she would work the lights.

Monica understood, for instance, that she wasn't dressed, posed, or lit in a style that would make sense for her to be flashing her pearly-whites with cutesy, come-hither, smiles.

Here's a suggestion when lighting with your mainlight source coming from below: You probably don't want it to look too much like horror movie lighting so, to tone it down a bit, I recommend using a clam-shell approach with your mainlight. But, in this case, it's a reverse clam-shell in that the lighting source is coming from below and a reflector is used overhead, both the source and the reflector being at opposing 45º angles towards the model. The mainlight will be hotter and the reflector will, of course, provide gentler fill from above, reducing the feeling that the image is coming straight out of a horror flick.