Round means that it is a circle, it is 2d. A sphere is 3d, a ball. A ball is round and a ball is a sphere. A circle is round but it is not a sphere. Hope this helps.

Thanks for pointing out my mistake to me, I appreciate it 🙂 My initial thought was that I can use the “illusion of roundness” concept to define the 2d versus 3d relationship. Maybe I was wrong and we need to find other words to describe it.

I got to thinking of another thing that is basic and important to lighting. When we have a hard light that is very distant, like the sun and we shine it on two sticks in the earth, the shadows are almost parallel. Take an equally sharp light and place it 1 meter in front of our meter high sticks and you will find that the shadows (in both cases) point at the light. This can lead to some interesting shadows! For example take 8 sticks in a circle and place the light in the middle and then put the camera over it all and take a picture and you have a cool spokey looking shadow (not the best example but you get the idea).

BTW I always wondered about how high to place my lights in loop lighting. Answer: the nose shadow should not touch the lip. 🙂
BTW Light Science and Magic is one of my favorite books! I also love Micheal Freeman’s 3 books on composition (Eye, Mind and Vision)!

You made an English mistake that is a problem. In no lighting is the best you state that one object is round and the other is flat. This is false. Both are round (2d) but one does not look like a sphere (3d).

I live in Germany and come from the USA so I know what it is like to try and live outside of your mother tongue! Most of your mistakes give character but this one is best changed. Keep up the good work! Thanks! Having fun with this chat.

From what I’ve read in the books, aimed at photographers, I can name a few general things for an appealing portrait lighting:

1. Soft lighting is often more forgiving than hard lighting. Small light sources create harsh shadows (under the eyes, from the nose as you mentioned). Soft diffuse lighting helps to hide wrinkles and skin imperfections.

2. Regarding positioning of the light source – Rembrandt lighting is often mentioned, that’s true. Also ‘loop’ lighting pattern comes to mind, when the light sources are positioned on both sides of the subject.

In Fil Hunter words (Light Science and Magic): “Most good lighting is, at least to some extent, side lighting.”

Of course, it’s a broad statement.

3. Simplicity – limiting amount of light sources to bare minimum and using only what’s needed. “The real reason we use multiple light is to solve some kind of lighting problem that we couldn’t fix with only a single light or simply by moving the subject into different light” – Neil Van Niekerk (Direction and Quality of Light)

You answer can not be denied and not to forget style, mood, movement and emotion! However it is a very high level answer and skips over the needs of the beginner. It is a bit light the law of thirds.

The law of thirds is a great answer to give to beginners that have no idea and after that you can give them the golden rule and then at some point as they have internalized that you can tell them that there is no rule and they should just go with their gut but beginners need rules and laws, ideas to keep an eye on. There are these rules and laws for lighting but finding them is hard because you mostly talk with experts who are past the rules or beginners that don’t know them.

Answering my own question I would go with a spark of light must be in the eyes and mostly at the 9 o’clock or 3 o,clock position. The length of the nose shadow speaks to how long the nose is so you might give a big noised woman a short nose shadow to make her look better. You might position the face so that the big eye is back to make the eyes look more even. Doing Rembrandt lighting you want a nice shadow on one cheek with a triangle of light under one eye.

Do you know other, “rules”?

Hehe, that question is like the philosopher’s stone. Or like the secret ingredient 🙂 I suppose that our answers will pretty much depend on the cultural (and pop-cultural), gender, social, political and art history background of the particular group of people, in the particular time frame.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t need to search! 🙂

I clicked on reply in the email and I got a 404 error. You might want to check up on that!

Thanks. I have been fighting for years to understand lighting and although most of what you are writing is old hat for me, I am still learning lots of cool tips. Thanks for making this great web site.

I always fight with one basic question, what is good lighting of a face and why? I mean you can find lots of setups of how to photograph a face but the reasons behind why they are doing what they are doing are VERY hard to find.

If you have cash to spend, I recommend this video. The promo is informative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbJ05yNblwg

You have not yet answered my big question yet. I wonder if you have found it? 🙂

Douglas, thanks for a nice tip! Indeed, I overlooked the inverse square falloff. When I be updating the article, I will include your tip for sure. And it will make its way into the book. 🙂

http://www.softschools.com/formulas/physics/inverse_square_law_formula/82/

Hope this helps! It took me a long time to learn this little fact.
Douglas E Knapp.