Although this fundamental three-quarter lighting serves you well and is very useful for the great majority
of your portraits, there are other lightings with which you should be familiar.
b. Side Lighting. With side lighting, the face is lit more intensely on one side than the other.
This type of lighting is well suited for young women who have smooth skin and regular facial features.
It is also a character lighting for men with strong features. Side lighting is not as flexible as three-
quarter lighting in that once established, it does not allow for movement of the subject's head without
readjusting or repositioning the lights.
(1) Correlation with main light. With side lighting, the main light should be a nondiffused
floodlight shielded to prevent its light from falling onto the background or camera lens. The distance for
the light is determined by using the forehead highlight test discussed under three-quarter lighting.
To start, locate the main light well to the subject's side so that it is at a 90-degree angle to the camera
lens axis. With the light in this position and the subject turned toward the camera, the cheek and eye on
the lighted side of the face are naturally rounded out. A dark shadow is cast in the smile furrow and
between the corner of the nose and eye on the shadow side of the face. These shadows must be softened
as much as possible without destroying the shadow pattern itself. To do this, move the main light
toward the camera as far as possible without spilling light onto the shadow side of the face. If main light
is allowed to spill over, the face gets pocked by small bright spots and a distracting shadow pattern is
created. A very small amount of spill light that just barely touches the upper eyelid on the shadow side
of the face may be allowed.
By moving the main light toward the camera as much as possible while maintaining side lighting,
highlight accents on the bright side of the face are brought as far toward the front of the face as possible.
If the main light is left at 90 degrees to the camera, highlight accents which it creates are so far around
the side of the face that they cannot be seen by the camera and the face lacks modeling.
(2) Correlation with fill light. After the main light has been established, the fill light is
positioned. The fill light for side lighting should be placed near the camera and on the opposite side
from the main light. If the fill light is too far to the side of the subject shadows may be cast in the inner
corners of the eyes and along the smile furrows.
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