Three point lighting in the real world?

[johnnyrod]

Outside a studio, do you try to arrange or find the components of three-point lighting?

Yes I put the A in amateur, but I was just reading this week about three point lighting. Outside of the controlled environment of a studio (which many of us don't have anyway), do you try to cover the aspects of this in the real world? I also know not many of you use flash. Do you try to find a spot with a bit of reflection to fill or backlight? Do you actually use a reflector or something? Choose your angle to make the most of one light source? Overexpose/ETTR and sort it out later?

On RFF there are a lot of different styles and shooters, especially street where not much is within your control, so I would be interested to know how you make whatever you have work for you.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Not in the real world, no. When it happens, great. But mostly it doesn't.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

If I'm taking portraits outdoors I'm trying to get faces not under direct light, but at the edge of the sun and shadow. I read about it somewhere. It was explained on the tree shadow example. At the edge of the shadow the light is not harsh, but soft and enough.
So, for outdoors portraits this is the light I'm looking for, which is soft.

For the street I'm walking with sun behind me and on the sunny side of the street. I'm choosing busy street based on light availability during the day. It is part of the game, walk and get something interesting happening under interesting light.

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . It is part of the game, walk and get something interesting happening under interesting light.

Sums it up perfectly.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Rico]

I don't like "found" light. It is usually dingy in color, coming from the wrong direction, or shining on uninteresting subjects. Solution for me is xenon flash, or reflectors. If weather is an issue (Chicago winters), my studio is even better. 🙂

 

[nongfuspring]

I find in late afternoon/early morning in big cities with a lot of glass it can happen, NYC in particular. I've definitely seen fashion photographers taking advantage of it, and also a street photographer (whose name I've forgotten) that finds these locations and waits for people to walk into them.

But for me it's just dumb luck.

 

[John Bragg]

I have not used studio lights for many years, prefering natural light. If you want to emulate 3 point lighting outside, you will need to use reflectors or fill flash combined with the sun as a backlight or hair light. Easy to achieve but a look that is a bit dated in my opinion.

 

[Nokton48]

Three Photogenic Mini Spots will do it.

http://www.photogenic.com/item/62/45/cl150fs-digilight-focusing-minispot/

"Pincer lighting"