How do you wrap the light around the face: book light

[omar robles]

Hello group:

In doing a light test using a book light technique a DP friend pointed out that the shadow is too harsh on my stand in talents face.  He said the light has to wrap around more, my question is how do I do that using the book light set up? I already have it angled the way it's done in examples.  Is there something I am missing?

 

 

[Albion Hockney]

a shadow being too harsh is subjective, sometimes you want strong shadows —other times not. no rules here. the quality of light you have looks alright to me.

the easy way to wrap the light more is just bring the whole unit to be slightly more frontal and the light will "wrap" around her face.

if you want to further soften the shadows you might try adding in a second more frontal source that continues the book light and blends into that first source. you can keep the 2nd light dimmer then the first light so it doesn't feel too frontally lit. the bigger the light source the softer the shadows will be.

[Stephen Baldassarre]

The lady looks fine to me, though the color doesn't match the background lighting.  If you want to soften the shadows, you could also add a bounce card to the other side to fill in some of the dark areas.