This week I spent a few hours with a portrait client at one of my favorite photo haunts, Balboa Park in San Diego. After we got some nice pretty natural light shots in the can, I asked Ally if she’d be game to indulge me in a few lighting setup experiments. “Rembrandt” lighting is not something I usually try to achieve because the light is directional and even a bit harsh, but my model is young and her face can take some hard lighting without a problem. Keep in mind that hard, directional light is not for everyone.

Basically, to achieve Rembrandt lighting, look to create a small triangle of light under your subjects eye on one side of the face (her left eye, in this case). This means your light needs to be off camera,  up high, and at a 45 degree angle to your subject, roughly. Rembrandt’s name is often associated with this type of lighting since it turns up in many of his paintings.

At this point in the shoot you can tell she is getting angry at me due to spending so much time tinkering with lighting. Seriously, I asked her to be a bit moody for these shots to match the dramatic lighting.

For these shots I placed a 430ex II high up on a lightstand and attached a homemade cardboard snoot to make the beam of light even narrower. Because she is seated on the steps, I had to use the entire ten feet of stand to get it up high enough.  I triggered the 430ex with my on-camera 580ex.

The flash looked about right at f3.5 and the background was dark, so I simply dialed down my shutter until the background started to come in, underexposed, but visible. I was able to shoot as slow as 1/20th at f3.5 ISO 100. The flash burst is fast enough to freeze her even if I shake the camera a bit. You could do this easily with manual flash, but I usually use remote ETTL so I can dial up or down with the flash comp button on the camera.

Special thanks to the Strobist, David Hobby, who has such a great wealth of information on his website and has fueled so many of us with his ideas. If you’re not reading strobist yet, GO DO IT.

Thanks for reading!