Glamour Photography Lighting Techniques
Glamour photography involves having the right equipment as well as the knowledge of how to use lighting to your advantage. There are various kinds of lighting, including natural light and studio lights, as well as light techniques that can be added post-processing. Photographers can manipulate the light to compose the photo, depending on the effect they want the photograph to have.
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Equipment
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The materials you need to be able to take glamour shots include an SLR camera, backdrops, props, a reflector and studio lights. You may also experiment and have the glamour shots taken outside, where there is more natural light and background. Professionals may also shoot pictures as "raw" images and tweak color balance in postproduction. Photo editing software such as Aperture and Photoshop may be used to achieve artistic effects.
Techniques
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You can select the white balance setting depending on the light source nearby--for most cameras, white balance settings include daylight, fluorescent, cloudy, shade and tungsten. Photographers can use blue filters to curb the yellow tinge produced by incandescent lights, while a daytime filter can offset the greenish color given by fluorescent lights in pictures. Photographers also manipulate angles to compose the photo. Direct light helps emphasize contrasts, while diffuse lights spread throughout the subject and can soften the image.
Portraits
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When taking a black and white picture, the shadows and the lights that fall on the subject are emphasized. You can use studio lights as the main light, and adjust depending on how you want the photo to look. You can create broad light by having your model pose at a 45-degree angle and focusing the main light on the part of the face that is facing the camera. You can create short lighting by having the model pose in the same way as in broad lighting, but this time by focusing the camera on part of the face that is farthest away from the camera.
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