Shaft of light hiding face

[Nathaly Pinheiro]

Hello!

In the image attached, the light must backlight the person and the product on the table (hamburguer). The problem is that the shaft is also hiding her face. What are the reasons it happened and what should be done to solve that ? 

 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Nathaly Pinheiro

[Frank Wylie]

Simply because there is not enough light falling on her face to register a proper exposure.

The key light is directional, hard and behind her. The key light is also not pointing at her face, nor is it bouncing back toward her from any object on the table.

The atmospheric fog in the shot creates an interesting problem in this shot if you want to hide the lighting source for her face.

I would try placing aluminized reflectors, basically crumpled-up and smoothed-out, rectangles and squares of aluminum foil on the table behind any objects on the table and try to kick some light back into her face.

If you place a practical source anywhere outside of the frame, it will probably destroy the shaft of light effect.  There might be a possibility of rigging some small fill light to appear to be coming from the practical bulb hanging down, but it's hard to say if this will produce it's own shaft of light in the smoked-up room.

You could also try cheating the subject back a bit from the table and placing a diffused light under, pointing upwards, but that might cause some problems with eye sockets and nose shadows.

My 2 cents...

Edited November 8, 2022 by Frank Wylie

[David Mullen ASC]

It’s sort of a no-win scenario since the shaft has to cover her face to hit the hamburger in front of her. Sure, you could spotlight her face so that it isn’t silhouette but then you’d have a lit face with a shaft covering it, light on light. 
 

Besides adding a key light for the face, you could make the top of the shaft barely go beyond the top of the head, reducing the amount of lit haze in front of the face, and/or you could use less haze overall.

You could also have a diagonal shaft of the coming from behind the person but from one side, not the center, and the shaft only cutting across the lower half of the person.

[Nathaly Pinheiro]

Thanks Frank and David!! ?

About adding a key light for her face, to do that I could add any soft light with honeycomb from camera left or right that It wouldnt light the haze and show that there ir a light coming in the scene right? Considering I would be lighting the haze from the front 

 

[Frank Wylie]

Nathaly,

Personally, I would think that any side light strong enough to give you a "good" exposure (that's open to personal interpretation) would also project a beam of illuminated smoke/fog toward the subject.

Again, I would try to steal some light from the key light by putting reflectors on the table behind the various objects on the table and bouncing it back into the subject's face.  Play with reflectors both hard and matte;  a reflected light source from a mirror can be softened with a light spray of white paint around the edges and very fine mist across the face to give you more punch but less diffusion than a matte surface.

One thing is certain, you have to actually try it on the set and judge the results.  Trust your eyes, they are your best tools. 

It's just a matter of experimentation; try "crazy" things;  you have to be resourceful.

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by Frank Wylie

[David Mullen ASC]

Frontal key for the face would create the least amount of a shaft of light especially if it is not at full exposure.