When To Use More Than Two Lights

When To Use More Than Two Lights

by William Lulow

Many photographers have a whole arsenal of lights and lighting equipment they use on a regular basis in their studios, but why do they need so many lights and how should they be used? There are also many photographers who actually don’t have enough lights to do a proper job with a portrait. Yes, effective portraits can be done with only one light, but we often need more than that to create the looks we want. This article will highlight when we should use more than just a MAIN LIGHT and FILL LIGHT.

We have discussed the reasons for adding a second light to your overall lighting arrangement and we have noted that they are used to add information or fill in shadows created by our single light source. But photographers routinely use more than the two initial lights. There are several reasons for this. We add extra lights:

1. To separate subjects from backgrounds
2. To light up the background when necessary or to reproduce a certain color
3. To add highlights that make the subject appear more three-dimensional
4. To render a subject with a special lighting to emphasize a composition

In the above image we have a studio lighting setup with five lights set up. There is one each behind the black “gobos”, one on the background to light it, a mainlight umbrella to the left of the camera and a small softbox fill-in light to the right of the camera. One would not necessarily have to use all of them, but they are setup just in case.

Here is one example. Once the subject is lit with a main light and the shadows are filled in, you might want to add some sparkle to the image:

Notice in this close up, that the subject’s hair is made to appear white against the background. This is achieved by arranging lights behind her that light up the sides of her head. Here is a diagram of the lighting arrangement:

The light placed on the floor behind the subject here is there to light the background in order to provide a gradient tone. Here is a better example of what it does:

Here you can see that the background is rendered a gradient tone from darker to lighter, top to bottom. This adds some overall sparkle to the photograph as well as separates the shoulders from the background itself. You can sometimes use only one light to produce a highlight or accent on the subject’s hair, as was done here, or you can use one light on each side (from the back) to make the highlights more symmetrical:

Note in this image how the hair is actually lit up from both sides, the background has the gradient tone and the fill-in light takes care of any shadows on the face.

Many photographers who have a lot of different lights sometimes use all of them. This is not necessary and is often over-kill. The rule of thumb is “don’t use any light unless it is adding something to the overall setup.” I want my subjects to almost jump off the page when the images are printed. I want highlights that separate subjects from the backgrounds. I want most shadows filled in for commercial-type headshots or portraits. The reasons are that it helps to create eye-catching images that make my subjects look their best.

The other thing that must be remembered is that in order to show a highlight or accent light on hair or shoulders, it needs to be about one f/stop brighter than the main light. The way I ensure that this will be the case is that the accent lights are used without any diffusion or bounce. They are used direct. The mainlight is usually bounced into my big portrait umbrella and the fill-in light is diffused by a softbox. Then the accent lights will almost automatically be brighter. Here is another example:

This is an image I just finished for a client with the same lighting setup as above. The beauty of this setup is that you can vary the intensity of each light separately or turn one or more off or on depending on what you want the results to be.  The above image only used one accent light because I thought that a bit more shadow on the other side of the subject’s face would still be light enough.

When clients come to the studio, I don’t always know what they look like in advance so I have had to change light positions or settings “on the fly” as it were. This overall setup permits me to change things whenever I deem it appropriate. Here another recent image:

For this image, the accent light hitting the hair, camera left, was the only extra light necessary to make this picture stand out.

You need a lighting arrangement that is flexible so that it can change with whoever the subject is and what their requirements are to make a great photograph. So, the initial five-light setup is a perfect way to begin any session because you can work from there and decide just how many lights you will need to make the portrait that you want.