Marc Dalessio

This post is for my portrait student in our discussion about lighting for portraits. I quickly pasted together a few examples to explain myself better.

The classic 3/4 view, light on both sides of the face with a strong ‘Van Dyck Z’. Painter stands between the window and the model:

Light on the far side of the face, half-tone or shadow on the nose:

Light from both sides, much more difficult to pull off in my opinion (the Serov on the left has light bouncing from everywhere in the room):

Half the face in full shadow, seems to very popular with self portraits:

I couldn’t find good historic examples of the high light-source, raccoon effect which is popular today. There are more lighting possibilities than just these four, but I figure this is a good start.

Someone sent me this link to a tutorial on lighting, one of the better ones I’ve seen.