All language subtitles for 4. Backlight

I love backlighting subjects with low sun.

I'll merely always turn into the sun

to put my subject between the sun and me,

and I get this beautiful, soft light on their face

because everything the sun is hitting in front of them,

including me is reflected back at them.

Whether it's buildings, grass, walls,

whatever's around us, it reflects back softly

which means the subject in a backlit photo

has no harsh shadows on their face.

It's certainly a very kind light from a beauty perspective

because there's no harsh shadows to show out wrinkles,

or imperfections on people's skin.

So, what I often do is bring that light into the studio,

so I will have a backlight as my key light

and then bring in reflection.

You'll see that backlight in movie posters that I've shot.

it's not just for a sort of reportage feel,

is just the idea that you get a really beautiful light

in someone's face and you get the drama

of the shaping light behind them.

So, what we've done now is created something

really quite gothic and it's creating really cool pictures.

So, all we've got here are three lights

going on and they're very symmetrical.

We've got our left and right backlight,

and then our highlight.

And you'll see in the pics I'm taking

I'm using them within the shot,

just how sort of dramatic it is.

And then we've just got this fill

which we sort of bring in here,

that's making a huge difference.

If you look at the shot with it and without it,

it's a big difference in the two exposures.

So, what I'm looking for now is this light

to create shape and to sculpt Eliza's face.

There's a line down her nose, line on her cheek

and the hair and you sort of find

her throughout the picture.

So, this is very similar to a light

that I will use outside.

I'll often at the end of a day,

I'd much rather shoot someone into the light

than using the light,

and especially the lower the light gets,

the less chiseling there is from the front light

that actually turning into a backlight, changes everything.

Now, because the studio's mainly dark in here,

we've got this big light giving us fill,

but normally when you're out and about on the street

and the sun's there, there's buildings, there's brick.

It's my own T-shirt,

There's all sorts of things that fill and create

a nice soft light, but in a studio

I like to have some control over it

which is why I have this big light back here.