Light — Science & Magic, 6th Edition

MAKING PORTRAITS 187

portrait with sunlight. Still, very few photographers shooting professional

portraits use a single light, and so we will now move on and discuss what

those other lights are and how to use them.

Fill Lights

Shadows are essential to the success of most portraits. Much of the time,

however, we prefer to lighten a shadow or even eliminate it altogether. We

can do this with a single light source only if we place it near the camera lens.

If, however, we want to keep the main light farther from the camera, we

need to use some kind of ll light.

Photographers commonly use a ll light that gives the subject about half

as much illumination as the main light, but this guideline is by no means

absolute. Some photographers li ...