What one light can do

This session was a teaching exercise as much as a commission: six finished portraits, all made with one head and a collection of things to put in front of it.

The six setups

• Broad soft. Large octabox, close, slightly above — the safe, flattering default.
• Short light. Same box, moved to the far side of the face, throwing the near cheek into shadow and narrowing the face.
• Rembrandt. Raised and swung until a triangle appears under the far eye.
• Split. Ninety degrees, no fill, half the face gone.
• Beauty dish under. Lifted from below for an unsettling, theatrical read.
• Bounced. Head turned into a white wall, the wall becoming the source.

The point

Nothing about that list is expensive. The difference between a flat snapshot and a portrait is the position of the light, and position is free.

Avery picked the split-lit frame. It is the one with the least information in it.

Six final portraits, retouched and delivered in both color and a matched monochrome conversion.