Lighting Setups With One Or Two Lights

 Lighting Setups With One Or Two Lights

by William Lulow

I have been thinking recently, about how I make portraits, like this one, that can look as good as the ones I make in the studio:

This portrait of my friend, French photographer, JeanRault, made outside of Paris, France, at a gallery where he was having a show, was lit with a smallish umbrella and a “raw” flash head that created the accent light. It’s that light that provided the highlights that added to the impact of the image. It’s an example of what the use and placement of minimal lighting can achieve. And, it was easy to set up while at this gallery. When I travel, it’s impossible for me to bring all my studio lighting equipment with me, nor would I really want to. Sometimes a minimalist approach gets the job done just fine. When I have an assignment, it’s another story. Then, I bring my entire five-light setup equipment with me. 

This was a lighting demonstration set-up for a portrait workshop, and was lit with four lights: Main light, fill-in and two accent lights. This is how I begin to arrange my lights for any portrait. It kind of starts here and then I change it as needed, varying the light intensities or positions to get a particular effect I want. The thing that I think makes this effective are the accents, the highlights that give the portrait some pizzaz! 

But sometimes I don’t want to set all this up. Sometimes it will suffice just to introduce ONE SINGLE HIGHLIGHT or accent along with a regular, umbrella main light. These are things I can pack in my suitcase without a lot of the extra equipment I normally carry. 

The example below was made with just one light bounced into an umbrella with the sun providing the accent light. Shot with a 135mm lens to create the background blur. 

Here’s another of a couple at their house in Maine:

Again, same simple set up here: Small umbrella main light, raw flash head as an accent light. These are both simple set ups but what makes them effective is the addition of the accent light. 

Another simple setup I use often is to provide some flash fill-in light while using the sun as the accent light:

Or one like this:

These were both made with a flash fill-in light provided by a flash with a small umbrella on a light stand. 

The regular umbrella here, is to shade the lens from the sun’s rays. 

And yet one more example:

This one was made with just a small umbrella fill-in flash. The sun did the rest. 

Once you learn your studio lightings, these kinds of images become relatively easy to make. All you really need is a light stand, one flash head and one umbrella. You would also need a radio trigger to fire the flash. But the same effect can be achieved with hot light as well… with long extension cords for use outdoors! (sic) But flash is much easier. 

Often, a minimalist approach to portraiture is the easiest and best solution.