Low Key Head Shot

Here are a few pictures of the setup I used for a low-key headshot of one of my sons. You can see the 42” Godox softbox as the main light. It contains an Einstein flash. The accent light is a Lumedyne 400 w/s head inside of a Newer softbox.

I adjusted the main light to shoot at F 5.6. The accent light was less than F 5.6 at about F4.

This son is pretty reserved so it takes a while to get him relaxed. Here is one of the first shots in the series. Man was he uptight.

A low key male headshot

Then after a little coaching, we ended up with this.

A low key male headshot

Well, that was a little much. So, we tried a bit more and ended up with the following that he sealed with his approval.

A low key male headshot

A low key male headshot

The whole point of this entry is that I need to remember that when people sit in front of my lens, it is not with anticipated joy. They would much rather be somewhere else. (In Caleb’s case, he was in a hurry to get this done so he could go and lift weights.) They are thinking about how quickly they can get this done.

People are sometimes fearful that the photo is going to show the world all of their faults. Those things that they don’t like about themself. I need to remind myself that part of the process is helping someone relax, and feel that I am collaborating with them to make them look good.

Here are a few pics of the simple setup used during this session.

Low Key lighting set up.

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