dirtpusher Loc: tulsa oklahoma

English_Wolf Loc: Near Pensacola, FL

[color]Put it simply: This is the use of a single light placed 45 degrees from the camera and model axes, oriented 45 degrees down onto the model (to mimic sunlight from a window by the way). The light is bounced back onto the subject using reflectors.

In short: 1 light 45-45-45, reflectors.

This is for studio single portrait only.[/color]

photoshopmikey Loc: Boston Ma.

English wolf

I like what you reply, I have learned from them. Thanks for helping this old goat make better photographs.

English_Wolf Loc: Near Pensacola, FL

I learn from you too, especially when you post about post processing.

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

Would you like to know why Rembrandt used this lighting on almost all of his sittings?

English_Wolf Loc: Near Pensacola, FL

Lucian

What I was told eons ago:

Consider the time:

When painting folks needed a 'perfect light' that was the Northern light (diffuse and cold). Short of that mid afternoon light was used. Models were either in a studio or in a room. When a studio, it was usually placed in a court yard that had light reflecting from the surrounding walls then going through a glass ceiling. The result is that the light was angled.

When in the room, the light was also angled and the southern light was used.
Portraitist or figure painting were the first to learn about anatomy and lighting.

The Rembrandt setting wants to mimic the lighting of that period. The 45-45-45 used correspond to:

45 light from the window (height of the flash and positioning toward the model)
45 positioning of the model toward the light and the photographer (posture)
45 positioning of the photographer (remember that there is a wall in this setup and that the painter needed to look at the model in the right position).

Now why always from the left and not from the right?

The left side has always been considered, due to religious beliefs - in many credos -. impure so the posing was made in order that the model right side was painted, not the left*.

Rembrandt mastered this first hence the name.

Note: I would not not stake my life on this interpretation but it is logical and makes for a nice story.


* Our bodies are asymmetrical and according to the 'canon of beauty' the right side is better. I certainly have encountered more drooping eyes (lazy eyes) on the left side than the right one. Muscles are more defined on the right side and on and on....

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

What I've learned was that Rembrandt was not the richest of people when he was doing his painting, as were almost every artist from then to today. The only studio he could afford was downstairs I believe or a room that had the following. They have found where he had his studio and it had a small window high up on the left and away from the edge of the wall. It was however, a room that had only one window in it and it was a longer room too.

So, he would place his subject at the end that had the window there which gave him his light, which was about a 45 degree angle above the subject and about 45 degrees towards the front of the subject. And that is why all his subjects had this same lighting pattern. The intensity of the light in his paintings depended on the sun of the day, weather wise.

The window was positioned in the room such that it allowed that beautiful lighting on the face and allowed for the lighter area to fall on the wall in the background just to the shadow side of the subject and had the darker part of the wall behind where the highlighted part of the face was (the main lit part). Hence the name today for Rembrandt lighting. All down to what he could afford in the way of a studio and where the window happened to be placed.

Your comments though, were also quite interesting English Wolf.

John Brown Loc: New Mexico

The Night Watch