Dramatic Lighting - Guide/examples?

sincity wrote in post #18656084
BTS of a three light set I pulled from the interwebz

And the BW image ~~

This is both funny and interesting at the same time. Bob (Robert Harrington) is a good friend of mine and a great teacher on how to light using small flashes. In his workshops he teaches beginners that the first modifier they should get comfortable with is a... shoot through umbrella. Can he light without it, absolutely, but using a light photographically is about manipulating shadows including their intensity and transitions. A bare light will help you see where you're aiming, but little on practical use of transitions.

A bare bulb with a metal reflector will give you directional hard light. A bare bulb with a shoot through umbrella can give you hard directional light (remove the umbrella) soft edge transitions like a soft box and anything in between. You can even control the direction so you don't have a "light grenade".

Sorry, I'll still maintain the first modifier should be an umbrella.

Here is a gun shot I did, just three lights.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/yvWx​nj

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/uQP8​AX

As has been suggested above, in general, fewer lights are better for drama in most cases.

Dramatic light generally has a lot of contrast.

Shoot through umbrellas are versatile and easy to use. But they throw light everywhere and are harder to control. So a beginner is more likely to have success with them (the shot is less likely to look bad) but it is far harder to control and create dramatic shadows (sure, it CAN be done if you want to get complicated...).

Multiple lights generally leads to a lot more need for control (Flags, barn doors, grids, shoots, cinefoil, etc) if you want to keep light from getting everywhere and cutting down on the drama.

Harder dramatic light is more challenging because it brings out skin imperfections. The answer tends to be models with good skin. And, even so, much Retouching is needed. Old Hollywood artists (Hurrell, etc) may have said their images were not retouched. It is a lie revealed by the negatives.

Caravaggio, suggested above, is the best example.

Old Noir images are great, too.

Look at Joel Grimes for a modern dramatic lighting style. Alas, he generally is using three lights for that .