Big Face

[miles]

Howdy Jeff, the info is from scott smiths web site- www.lightingmagic.com

http://www.lightingmagic.com/lightqa.htm#Lighting the round face.

Lighting the round face Back to Top

I would like to solicit your recommendations on how to light and pose a person with a round face so that they look thinner? Thanks for your input! Ky

Dear Ky: When you have a portrait subject who has a round face there are a number of things you can do to help the situation. A slightly higher than normal camera position will help make the face look a bit smaller in the lower part of the face which is where most facial roundness is observed. Always use short lighting for this type of portrait because it slenderizes. It is also helpful to avoid poses that place the face looking straight into the camera position. Have the subject turn their head a bit and look back toward the camera. Finally, use a ratio that is a bit heavier than usual. That is to say, make the shadow side of the face just a bit darker than you might typically do. The more you light of the face, the more attention you call to it. When you light less of the face, it will appear smaller because the eye sees less of it. Your main light can be a number if different types and still be successful. You can do what you need to do with a small, medium or larger light source. Medium to large will give you the most flattering look. A stronger ratio is in order to darken the shadow side of the face just a bit more than usual to draw less attention to it. In addition, you should adjust your background to be about the same tonality as the shadow side of the face to again draw less attention to it. This would definitely fall into the darker category. Light backgrounds show the full shape and size of a subject. Not usually a good idea. Draw less attention to an area by blending it into a background with a similar tonal value. I don?t wish to confuse you about my different method of determining a ratio. Rather than making you calculate the amount of light coming from each light, I prefer to have you take specific meter readings with the dome of your meter pointed toward the main light and again with it pointed at the fill light but shielded from the main light. It is very important to have all of your light operating so you will take your readings under the same conditions that will exist when you create your portrait. The difference in these two reading will give you the simple difference in brightness of each side of the face. For a portrait like you are talking about, a three stop difference or even a bit more is in order. Don?t get confused and think that this is the same as a 3 to 1. It is not. This is purely a difference which is much simpler to think about. For most photographers, ratios were never very much fun to calculate. Hope all goes well for you.

[miles]

DO NOT USE A SHORT OR WIDE ANGLE LENS! Use the longest lens that you have in your arsenal or RENT a long lens. practice with a neighbor or friend prior to your subjects showing up if possible. good luck! m.

[Jonathan Brewer]

A few thoughts about what's been mentioned about ratios......the correct way of figuring out a ratio between your key light and fill light is to calculate the key + fill to fill.

Make you fill light half the intensity of your key and you have a lighting ration of 3 to 1 NOT 2 to 1. Illustrating this in another manner, set the intensity of you key at 100 units, your fill at 50 units, that's a total of 150 units hitting the face(except in the shadow area created by the key). The shadow area is illuminated only by the 50 units of your fill light. 150 units(key + fill) to 50 units(shadows lit by fill) or 3 to 1.

If you want 3 to 1 just turn on your key and set the intensity you want and then turn on keylight off. Turn on your fill-light and set that intesity to half of your key, you now have a ratio of 3 to 1. If you want to play around with this ration just raise or lower you fill, simple as that.

Regarding the above thread which mentions the issue of a lighting ratio that involves a difference of three stops between your key and fill, maybe something has gone over my head. A three stop difference between your key and fill means that one light is putting out 12% of the intensity of the other so you've lost me on this point. Maybe I'm reading that thread the wrong way.