Lighting Hat Photos

[deanzat]

I had a few minutes tonight to experiment with how to light portraits of people wearing hats. I'll need to work light locations and ratios more, and I think I'll be able to do this much better when they're not self-portraits. I'm looking forward to figuring this out. This also shows me that I need to do some shaping on my Fed IV! Hats are a Stetson 4x western, a Stetson Open Road, an Akubra Fed IV Deluxe, an Akubra Stylemaster, and an Akubra Banjo Paterson. The colors are fairly accurate, but I need to work on consistency there...

 

[thinkfloyd]

When I find myself doing portraits for individuals with hats, I put a snoot on the hair light, and either backlight the hat to give it a rim of light. Or if the hat is the subject, or at least an important element of the composition, I place the hair light at an angle in front (short side or long side of the face, depending on what effect you are after), to either soften the shadows or accent it, and to also give the hat some focus.

Felts are easier to work with since they absorb light, its the shiny ones, like Panamas, straws, etc. that may pose a problem with regards to positioning the light.

 

[deanzat]

When I find myself doing portraits for individuals with hats, I put a snoot on the hair light, and either backlight the hat to give it a rim of light. Or if the hat is the subject, or at least an important element of the composition, I place the hair light at an angle in front (short side or long side of the face, depending on what effect you are after), to either soften the shadows or accent it, and to also give the hat some focus.

Felts are easier to work with since they absorb light, its the shiny ones, like Panamas, straws, etc. that may pose a problem with regards to positioning the light.

Thanks for the tip. I'll try it tonight. With any luck, I'll get a model so I can concentrate on shooting. Z