Posing101

Following up on a thread I commented on earlier, here's a quick picture of what lighting can do to how muscular you look.

These images were made with Poser4 using the model "Michael3" without beefing him up. Nice enough body but just look what the difference in lighting does to how muscular he appears.

The upper left image shows a (empty) gym locker room with canister lights near the wall over some mirrors. There are two lights.

The model is standing directly under one light but back almost out of it's cone of coverage (60 degrees). If you look closely you can see two shadows of the model on the floor. The average ambient light of the areas not illuminated by the ceiling lights is about 30% of the brightness of the area covered by the lights (i.e. dark room, medium bright overhead lights slightly in front of the model).

The lower left light is with the overhead lights turned off and the ambient room lighting left at about 40%. (i.e. dim evenly lit room)

The lower right images is with the overhead lights turned off and the average ambient room lighting at about 80% (i.e. bright evenly lit room).

The point is, the shadows of the curves of the muscles can be either emphasized or hidden by lighting conditions. The shadows are VERY important to the appearance of muscularity. On a bland colored surface (i.e. human skin) it's the shadows that give the major mental clue to curvature. Notice the detail in the model's back, under the delts, under the pecs, near the hips, due to the lighting conditions.

Poor lighting conditions can contribute to a poor mental body image. Don't let it fool you.

-- LeatherGryphon --

[Phlex]

For those of us who sometimes photograph others, this is quite instructive. Can you show us other setups, with varying lighting angles and ambient intensities? Side and bottom lighting might also be interesting to see.

[sexiscriptor]

So, I take it you're saying that definite shadows created by the lights are better than ambient, even lighting? Am I understanding you correctly?

Yes!

Also notice the contrast between the man and the back wall of the room in the upper right picture. The man is well lit but the back wall is dark. The contrast makes the man stand out against the back wall.

As in all things, you have to come to a balance. Too many and too dark shadows obscure things.

If I get time, I'll do some more examples and try to give some numbers. However most people don't have calibrated, variable intensity lights and professional light meters.

However the basics were shown in my first post. Try it.

-- LeatherGryphon --