How Do You Take Studio Headshots?

Studio Lighting For Headshots

How do you take studio headshots? I bet if you asked 10 photographers this question you’d get 10 different answers ranging in difficulty of set up from a single natural light window to a a 6 light set-up with V-flats and reflectors. None of those answers would be wrong either.

I like to keep things simple with my studio headshots. The lighting should be flattering, even and gorgeous! I love soft light that wraps around my subjects, for that reason I use big modifiers. I don’t use a ton of lights, just big modifiers. The most complex set-up that I sometimes use is my triangle set-up for women’s headshots. This shot above was shot with that lighting. If you zoom in on her eyes you can just about deconstruct what I’ve done with the lights.

A Quick Look At Women’s Headshot Lighting

So for women, I like to shoot with beauty lighting. It’s softer light, more flattering to a female face. It wraps around the face softly and and the change from shadow to highlight is very soft. Not to say I don’t shoot men this way, I just mostly shoot women this way. The basic set-up is a 1x3 light on camera left almost vertical, slightly turned in towards the right, another 1x3 on the right but this one at a steep angle so the top of the light is turned to touch the top of the light on the left. Then, one more 1x3 on the bottom turned horizontal. It’s basically a wide triangle. This picture below is what I used to shoot this image, though now I tend to keep the camera left light more straight and the camera right one more turned.

A Quick Look At Men’s Headshot Lighting

Men’s lighting is even more simple that women’s. For men, I generally sue one light on camera left, with a 31 inch diffused umbrella. I like to shoot with shadow on men to really outline the more angular features of their face. I keep the light nice and close though to keep it soft and keep the transition from shadow to highlight a bit softer.

Turning The Grey Backdrop White

To keep my work flow as smooth as possible I don’t want to take time to change out backdrops. I shoot in a smaller home studio so I don’t have space to keep both up. So to deal with that, I use a Westcott Fj400 directly behind the subject and I light the backdrop so it turns perfect white. I use the Westcott trigger on my Nikon D850 and can turn any of my lights on or off, up or down directly from the camera.

Okay, for all you tech nerds out there all these images are shot with a Nikon D850, 85mm1.8G. The lights in the photo above are Alien Bee 400 but now I shoot with Westcott FJ400 wireless strobes. The backdrops are savage seamless fashion grey, and a westcott popup grey and white backdrop for my on location shoots.