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Hi and welcome back.

I want to share a great lighting technique for the high key beauty headshot.

This technique gives you a simple high key look and is easy to execute; however, you’ll need a few pieces of gear.

2 strobes: I used Hensel Integra 500’s

1 Beauty dish with sock: I prefer the softer light of the dish with a diffusion sock attached: Chimera 30″ Octa Beauty

1 silver reflector for tons of contrasty fill: I used a California Sunbounce Micro Mini with Grip Head attached to a light stand

1 large softbox: I used a Chimera 36 x 48 White Interior soft box, but you can use any large softbox

Here’s the setup:

Hensel Integra 500 with Chimera 30″ Octa Beauty with sock, California Sunbounce reflector, Hensel Integra 500 with Chimera 36 x 48 soft box.  The key to this setup is placing your light at approximately a 45 degree angle to you subject and each other so you literally sandwich your subject with light:

_RVH2712 _RVH2715 _RVH2774For my Key Light, I used a Matthews 40″ C-Stand with a Matthews 40″ Hollywood Grip arm to get my light above and keep the light stand off to one side for a perfectly centered key light over my reflector.

Here’s a final after only minor adjustments in Photoshop.

I love this look as it wraps your subject in light and the back light adds separation and edge light along the chin line with only two lights.

_RVH2740 webExcept for removing a few skin blemishes and a a couple of stray hairs, the final is just about how it came out of the camera.

The most major adjustment you may need to make is to add some blacks in Camera Raw or Lightroom.  The backlight has a tendency to reduce contrast as it wraps around the head, so just pull the black slider to the right to add the contrast back and that’s about it.

I love this look.  It’s simple and fun and the results are amazing.

Till next time, happy shooting!