Basic headshot with the Starlite Medium Digital Kit

There are many decisions to make when creating a headshot. You can decide to shoot indoors or outdoors, to use available or artificial lighting (or a combination of both), or to position your subject in front of an available or custom background. This lesson examines some basic lighting techniques for an indoor location headshot.

(Click on any thumbnail image below for an enlarged view.)

Topics Covered:

Creating a simple portrait set on location

Equipment Used:

Lighting Equipment

Figure 1

We began this shoot by placing a Medium SilverDome (Medium Starlite kit) with a 500 watt bulb slightly to the right of the camera and up high aiming down.

Figure 2

This is the result.

Figure 3

Next, we placed a 32" Soft Gold MultiDisc to the left to fill in the shadows on the left side of the model's face.

Figure 4

This is the result.

Figure 5

Then we placed a Starlite Small Digital Kit with a 500 watt bulb in it to the far right of the camera aiming at the model's hair. We also placed an X-Small SilverDome (Basic Starlite kit) behind the model and aimed it at the background to blow out the background. This step is not necessary for the shot you may like, but we wanted to show you some options. Also, for this shot the reflector was removed.

Figure 6

This is the result.

Figure 7

We put the reflector back in position to fill in the left side.

Figure 8

Our final result looks great.

With an extra light or two you can really change the outcome of your shot.

Click here to view a more detailed version of this lesson, complete with camera set-up information, on Web Photo School.

Related Lessons
Following are Web Photo School lessons related to this topic.

	Using the Narrow Portrait Lighting Technique Learn how to set up a traditional "narrow" portrait lighting set up.
	Finessing Soft Light for Fashion Learn how to shoot with the "clamshell" style of lighting and how to get a bright, white background.
	Transformations with Portrait Lighting We used a large (7-foot) main light to shoot this portrait.
	Shooting Glamour in the Studio See how we used radio-controlled strobes and focusable spotlights in the glamour photo session.

Basic headshot with the Starlite Medium Digital Kit

Topics Covered:

Equipment Used:

Lighting Equipment

Equipment Used:

Lighting Equipment

Recommended Links

Have a question? Post them to the PLS Community!