Shifting the light to heighten drama

…As a kid, you might remember playing with a flashlight…and putting it under your face while telling horror stories.…That provided the terrifying portrait sure to scare all your friends or siblings.…That same principle applies to this exercise.…For our normal portrait, we flooded the room with light.…All the fixtures matched the same color temperature.…Because the goal was to portray a very modern, clean, and orderly kitchen…with a friendly chef, we wanted to avoid dark shadows or too much contrast.…

Even though the chef is sharpening his knife, we…don't get the feeling that he might attack us.…Assuming that the story called for a more dramatic portrait, we removed some…of the most powerful lights and lowered the brightness on the remaining lights.…This is definitely more dramatic, but our chef still looks happy and friendly.…When a light is singularly directed…it creates very deep, often unnatural shadows.…That's the approach we used for the third and most dramatic portrait.…Not only we dimmed the background light even further, but we also…