Studio Glamour Lighting 101

Sorry if it looks like a mess in my studio, that's the way it often is. But I think this image is a fairly decent example of a typical lighting setup for the purpose of producing effective glamour images.

To me, one way to keep an image firmly in the realm of contemporary "glamour"(tease, T&A, Playboy-style, whatever you want to call it) is with backlighting and highlights. Notice, in the (above) image, there are more lights working from behind the model than in front of her. Their job is to produce hightlights, rims, and edges. (Oh, BTW, the model here is Nikita Lea. Nikki's a well-known and experienced glamour model.)

I like to use strip lighting to produce highlights that "edge" the model. There's a two-fold purpose to this, well, maybe three-fold: 1) It adds excitement to the image by way of the highlights, 2) it separates the model from the BG, and 3) if a graphic designer is, later, going to be lifting the model from the image's BG to replace it with something else, he or she will have an easier time doing so with all that hot rimlighting surrounding her.

For the key or mainlight my trusty Mola beauty dish always delivers soft, creamy lighting. Remember, the closer in you move the light source, the softer it will be. Octagons and large softboxes are also effective mainlights as are (but, IMO, to a lesser extent) large umbrellas. I find the Mola's most effective range to be from 3' to 5' and, for whatever reasons, I like shooting with my mainlight in and around f/5.6 at 125th for this sort of stuff. And, yes, I always meter my lights. If you're not using a meter, I suggest you start doing so. You want control, right? Well, its more difficult and time-consuming to effectively control the light when you can't measure it.

With my mainlight at 5.6, my backlights are going to have to be hotter, i.e., producing more intensity, in order to get the highlights I'm looking for. To accomplish this, I set the backlights in and around a third of a stop hotter than the mainlight. (Example: Meter will read + or - f/5.6.3.) As for the hairlight, I'll sometimes make that one even stronger depending on the model's hair color, e.g., darker hair, more light, lighter hair, less light depending, of course, on the effect I'm looking to achieve.

None of my light-settings are etched in stone and I don't JUST rely on the meter. What are we? Technicians or artists? Okay, maybe a bit of both, but I also chimp and adjust to taste. Often, I'll quickly throw the first images onto a computer (a laptop on the set) to have a look at them before I begin shooting in earnest. I don't trust those LCDs on the back of the cameras, they always seem to be brighter than the image even when I turn down the brightness on them. Plus, they're so small it's hard to examine the detail even when you zoom in. I do, for the most part, trust the histograms, but they can sometimes be deceiving as well.

You might notice I'm using a piece of foamcore for fill on the other side of the model from the mainlight. In this case, it's a piece of foamcore mounted on a piece of beadboard, i.e., thicker, coarser, styrofoam. If I remove the fill, the model's face will have more shadow and be perceived as "artsier." (Rembrandt patch, chiaroscurro, and all that artsy stuff.) Reflecting some fill subtlely and gently fills in the shadows while not producing a flat, across-the-face, exposure. (Lighting ratios and all that.) You'll also notice a small light in the rear and to the right of the model. That's a small softbox with some cinefoil (blackfoil) wrapped around it to keep the light from spreading. This light is acting as a kicker and highlighting the ends of her hair which are being gently blown back by a fan.



Well, there's my twenty-five cent glamour lighting lecture. Try to remember: this stuff ain't rocket science. Once you become comfortable and at-home with your lighting, you'll be able to concentrate on important things like getting the model to deliver the goods.