Four Classic Portrait Lighting Techniques

The four classic portrait lighting techniques are the Rembrandt, Split, Broad and Butterfly lighting. In my advance TV production class, we learned and executed the 4 techniques.

Rembrandt Lighting consists of the key light, fill light and back light, you could find the definitions of that on one of my other blog posts below.

Split Lighting requires the key light only.

Broad Lighting consists of using the rembrandt lighting setup but the subject's face has to be turned off center so that the broad side is more exposed.

Butterfly Lighting gets its name from the butterfly shaped shadow that is created under the nose by placing the main light source above and directly behind the camera.

                                                                  Rembrandt Lighting

                                                                     Broad Lighting

                                                                Butterfly Lighting

                                                                       Split Lighting