ABSTRACT
Unlike the great outdoors, the studio environment is where portrait photographers have almost complete control over the lighting available, allowing them to exercise their creativity. In fact, if only plain backgrounds and few props are available, then the photographer in the studio will need to be creative in order to produce something out of the ordinary. There are numerous ways of lighting studio portraits, and in fact, that's half the fun. However, the most typical arrangement is to have one light to the right side of the camera at 45 degrees to the subject, above head height, pointing downwards and another on the left, at 45 degrees, with the same positioning. The metering system in the camera is a reflected light system, so it measures the light bouncing back off the subject. This can measure the ambient or reflected lighting.
