August 2026, Lighting Portraits

Dear Dru,

News about happenings at Deliberate Light and photography instruction (see Digital Photo Academy). My views on this month’s photography topic: Lighting Portraits.

NEWS

Upcoming Workshops. I am next scheduled to teach workshops for Digital Photo Academy on November 7^th, 2026 at the Philadelphia Free Library in Philadelphia. You can sign up here.

• Mastering Your Camera Controls (1.5 hours) – intended for DSLR/Mirrorless/Compact cameras (smartphone tutorial available separately)
• Composition in the Field (3 hours) – walking tour around the venue with instruction and hands-on practice composing photos (bring any camera)

New Photo.

Dawn on the Neversink. Vacationing with our family is always a treat, especially when we stay at campgrounds with beautiful scenery. The constant murmur of the flowing river is the only sound that greets us as we wake before sunrise. In this light, with the touch of mist off the river, the trees and water are almost iridescent. I would spend eternity in this moment, but I am hungry and I do not know how. The sky lightens, the mist passes, and the new day begins.

(Neversink, New York, 2026)

For a more detailed, enlarged view, see it on my website.

VIEWS

Lighting Portraits

The lighting for a portrait can be terribly important or it can be irrelevant, depending on your inclinations and objectives for the portrait. I do not intend to get very technical about this – no discussions of Rembrandt lighting, key lights, or light modifiers. I only want to illustrate some of the ways lighting affects a portrait and I will do that with examples by four great photographers.

The light on this Cuban lady is subtly uneven, coming from our upper left. It is diffuse light but enough directionality that it softly highlights the lady’s wrinkles, adding dramatic texture to her gorgeous pastel colors. This could have been readily achieved by positioning her in a doorway out of direct sunlight. In fact, it is likely something like that, since the photographer, Steve McCurry (of Afghan Girl fame), generally avoids flash or other artificial lighting. Such a positioning yielded a dark background, against which the colors on the lady are dramatically accentuated.

Havana, Cuba, 2010, by Steve McCurry

This is where I shamelessly interject my own photo to add the drama of backlighting to the discussion. In this case, the backlight was provided gratis by the golden hour light of sunset.

Athlete at Rest, 2019, by me

Lest you think that only color photos can have dramatic lighting, this photo by Irving Penn uses strong shadows to darken and dramatize the person. The shadows are not harsh, there is a gradation from bright to dark, but the brightness surrounded by shadow really accentuates that eye of the artists staring out at you.

Picasso, Cannes, France, 1957, by Irving Penn

An even more dramatic lighting is created by Nadav Kander in this monochromatic portrait, probably using a blue-green filter on a light projecting a tree branch silhouette. The light is artificial, but it was probably not a very complicated set up. Creative, for sure! However, while I greatly admire Kander’s photography as works of art, I have to say I do not feel they make for great portraits of the sitters; in this case, the lighting effects are more important than the person being photographed.

Rosamund Pike II, 2015, by Nadav Kander

Lighting does not have to accentuate contours and textures as the above examples illustrate, in order to make for an effective portrait. Richard Avedon often uses an even wash of diffuse light across the face of the subject, as below, allowing the viewer to see everything minutely. He is quoted as saying “My photographs don’t go below the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues.” Avedon used artificial lighting and reflectors for even light, but much the same effect can be achieved by simply placing the person outdoors in the shade with sufficient illumination coming from behind the photographer.

Sandra Bennett, twelve-year-old, Rocky Ford, Colorado, 1980, by Richard Avedon

There are a couple of things to take away for your own photography, one a technique and the other an intangible. First is the use of diffused light in portraiture to soften the features– no direct sunlight on the face creating harsh shadows. Having said that, the evenness of the light across the face is a matter of taste, ranging from flat light (like the Avedon photo) to drama (like the Penn and Kander photos).

The most important objective of a portrait, in my opinion, should be to reveal something about the character and inner life of the person being photographed. The implication, then, is that lighting should serve that objective and may well be an important part of achieving it, but lighting should not distract the viewer from the subject. If I am right about that primary objective, it begs a question that I will let you think about for yourself: how do you get a person to stop “posing”, and to let the camera see something of their natural self?

Carl Finkbeiner

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