Delighting with Three-point Lighting

 For this assignment, we learned about the process of Three-point lighting. When using this process, you have to have three different lights. Key light, fill light and back light. All three have an important role in this light process. Key light is the main source of illumination to whoever is being captured on camera, and this is used to give definition to the person being recorded, the key light should be 45 degrees to the right of the subject. However, this can cause shadows to appear to the side and below of the persons face. That's when fill light is used. Fill light should be 45 degrees to the left of the subject being recorded and shouldn't be as intense as the key light, so they don't compete with each other. This is used to "fill" in the shadows on the persons face from the key light to give a much more even light around the whole face. Finally, back light. This is used to make the subject stand out more from the background to focus more on them. The back light should be behind and up high pointing down to the subject and to an angle out of the frame, where the light only spills onto the subject, not into the camera lense. The main idea of this, is to shine down on the subject and create a rim of light around the shoulders and head. 

This video link will help you understand Three-lighting in more detail.

                 

   Here are the photos I took in class, describing the process of Three-point lighting: 

Here's fellow classmate Sylvester Brown with no lights being on. Notice how dark his face and the background are.

 Here's him again, but in this photo key light is being used to illuminate his whole face. Notice how much more defined his face looks, however there are shadows to the left of his face. 

In this photo, fill light has been added to go along with the previous key light. The fill light's purpose is to eliminate possible shadows on the person's face to create a proportional light effect. Notice how the shadows from the previous photo are eliminated and the light isn't being reflected from the top right of his forehead. 

Lastly, this photo brings all of the three-point lighting techniques together by using back light. The purpose of using this, is to focus more on the subject from the background. Notice how light from the background is more even, giving all focus to the subject.

Here's a wide shot of all three of the lights being used on Sylvester.

If you want to check out some of Sylvester's blog posts, click here