I never fancied myself as a photographer. But without continuous access to a live model for my paintings, I had to get creative - fast. I started photographing my own models 5 years ago, teaching myself how to capture the reference photos I needed to bring my work to the next level. It wasn’t easy, of course. I started off like many other people with just my camera phone, hoping for the best.
Lighting was one of the first lessons I thought myself. Growing up, I always really loved very dramatic theater lighting. My high school art department was lucky enough to acquire all of the lighting from our theater department. I was lucky enough to have some hands-on learning from that experience. This established a foundation of what I liked and didn’t like from a lighting perspective. Thankfully with YouTube, I’ve been able to fill in the blanks on understanding how to work a real camera, particularly how important it was to understand how the aperture played a role in capturing light as it passes through my lens. Take a moment to imagine how your eyes work — if you move between bright and dark rooms, the iris in your eyes either expands or contracts, controlling the size of your pupil. This is the role of an aperture.
For my current series, I was really interested in tapping back into the high contrast lighting I used to love from the stage. I wanted to try to recreate “chiaroscuro lighting” which was pioneered by Leonardo DaVinci, Caravaggio, Vermeer, and Rembrandt. What’s “chiaroscuro lighting”? It’s the use of contrast in light and shading across an entire composition. This lighting technique that creates a three-dimensional quality in images on a two-dimensional plane.
Based on my research, the masters would use direct sunlight, diffused daylight, or candlelight to illuminate their subjects. Sometimes switching among these three kinds of lighting while working on the same canvas — which is wild to think about.
With this in mind, one of my favorite ways to recreate this lighting is by using a reflective umbrella. Using an umbrella allows me to diffuse light so that I can achieve softer lighting in my images. So instead of focusing a single light source on my subject, the umbrella bounces off the light in different directions. I use a black umbrella with a silver-lined interior, at 45 degrees, angled downward at my subject. This allows me to highlight my subjects features - particularly their forehead, nose and cheekbones. The larger the light modifier, the softer the light on the subject is going to be. So choose the size of your umbrella based on this principle. I’ve been using a smaller umbrella, so the shadows on my subjects will be harsher.
Again, I’m still a beginner at this, so if you have any tips or tricks from behind the lens, be sure to share them in the comments!