Using contour or rim light in a studio as a single light source. How to: Short tutorial.

You've probably seen those images somewhere on the web and wondered how they are done. It's pretty simple actually and with some experience and experimenting you can achieve great results.

The best part is that you do not need crazy equipment or expensive studio environment for this. All you need is a single light source. Even a simple practical would do and a camera with manual settings

In my case i used a single studio flashlight and big octabox diffusion. But you can do it with smaller diffusion or without any at all for harsher shadows and more defined lines. And we did it in my loft apartment. No fancy settings.

The main trick here is positioning of light and yourself with the camera. For the best results you should put the light source pretty close to your model for a fast light falloff. Once you have your exposure set for the brightest spot you just move to left and right of the light with the camera. The straighter you are shooting in to the light the more shadows. If you move more to the right (in this case) of the light the more of light reflections you will get from the skin of the model, hence, less shadows.

This is a pretty interesting technique that will allow you to achieve professional looking results pretty easily and with minimal setup. If you try this please share your results. It would be very interesting to see what did you come up with.

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