Learn to light like a cinematographer!

In Hawaii, shooting with natural light is a given. Many of us understand how to control natural light to make our subjects pop. With so few photo/video studios around, few of us have had the opportunity to practice lighting within a studio setting.

Lighting in-studio frees you from constraints of weather and time of day, your only limit is what you can create! Just make sure to make it look natural. Keep your light sources motivated by using a combination of practical (on-camera) and off-camera lights, and use Color, Intensity, Angle, and Quality to keep the light solution consistent.

This video by Joel Dryer is a great study into lighting like a cinematographer. Whether a portrait photographer, wedding shooter, commercial producer, or film maker, the techniques Joel covers is extremely useful and helpful when thinking about how to approach the lighting of a scene and subject. Even if you’re not planning to shoot for cinema, understanding how a DP sells mood and emotion just through lighting is an important part of the our visual industry.

If you like his video, don’t forget to click through to YouTube so you can subscribe to his channel.