Professional studio photography lighting part 4: Fashion lighting setup

Hey guys. We’re continuing our series on Professional studio photography lighting, and today we are going to learn a new fashion lighting setup. This is a basic lighting setup that uses 3 lights, though you technically only need two flash heads.

In this lighting setup, the key (main) light is attached to a 4×6 softbox with a grid placed on one side of the subject (model). The grid on the softbox focuses the light towards the model, and creates a very high contrast scene.

To cut down on all that contrast and have a little fill on the model’s opposite side, we are going to place a large silver reflector that is gonna catch some of the light from the softbox and bounce it back onto the model’s other side for some soft side fill.

Lastly, we are going to place a flash head and turn it towards our choice of backdrop. This light is attached to a snoot for a focused, small, rounded beam of light. This will illuminate the background and make your model shine out.

Here’s the diagram for this fashion lighting setup. If you try this one out, feel free to share your results with us in the comments below.

More stuff is coming soon. Stay tuned…