Broad Lighting: How to Create a Broad Lighting Setup for Portraits

Broad lighting is a type of lighting photographers use primarily for portrait photography. In this lighting technique, light illuminates the broad side of the subject’s face in front of the camera.

A broad lighting setup for photos will have the following effect on portraits:

1. 1. Wide face: Broad lighting will make the subject’s face look wider. This kind of lighting is also a good lighting setup for babies and children because it illuminates their entire faces.
2. 2. Brighter image: Broad lighting illuminates the broader side of the face, with small shadows on the short side of the subject positioned away from the camera. This creates a photo that is brighter overall.
3. 3. Lighter mood: Photos with broad lighting have fewer shadows, giving them an overall lighter mood. This lighting style is common for headshots and school pictures.

To create a broad lighting setup, follow the studio lighting tutorial below:

1. 1. Position the subject. Position your subject in front of the camera and angle their face to one side. The part of the face closest to the camera, the broad side of their face, will be lit.
2. 2. Place the main light. Place the key light near the camera in a position to illuminate the broad side of your subject’s face.
3. 3. Add modifiers. You can achieve broad lighting with one light, but you can also add a fill light, reflector, or softbox to lessen the contrast between the light and dark sides of the subject’s face.
4. 4. Combine broad lighting with other lighting patterns. You can also combine broad lighting with other photography lighting patterns such as split lighting, Rembrandt lighting, butterfly lighting, or loop lighting to create different moods and shadow patterns.

Short lighting and broad lighting are lighting techniques that produce differing results. The key difference include:

• The light source: To create a broad lighting setup, the main light illuminates the part of the subject’s face closest to the camera. Short lighting is the opposite of broad lighting—in this technique, you light the part of the model’s face further from the camera, which puts the closest side of the face to the camera in shadow.
• The effect: With broad lighting, faces tend to look wider, and with short light, faces can look more angular, longer, and slimmer. Broad lighting illuminates a large swath of the face, so parts of the face including facial lines can be hidden in shadow. The increase in contrast and shadows with short lighting can highlight facial lines, such as wrinkles or scars.
• The mood: Broad lighting produces photos with few shadows, creating a light mood. Short lighting produces a more dramatic effect with more shadows and contrast, and it is ideal for producing moody photographs.

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