Portrait Lighting Setup

 My favorite portrait lighting setup

It seems that in my old age I have developed a real passion for photography, especially Portrait photography. Below is a drawing of a lighting setup that has became my go to setup for portraits of all sorts. My gear is not the latest and greatest, most of it is several years old. My main light is a Godox AD360II, bare bulb flash unit, it’s about 7 years old. It has never run the battery down and has never failed. The other two lights in this setup are Godox V860II’s, about 6 years old. They to have never failed me. The main light is a 24” x 36” Glow softbox that gives a nice soft light. the Hair/Rim light is a Glow 10” x 24” softbox that gives a nice soft light. Both softboxes are easy and quick to setup and take down. The two reflectors are simple white foam-core 20” x 30”, I get mine from Walmart but they are available in any office supply store. The background light is another Godox V860II in a Rouge grid, this allows me to use colored gels to control the color of the background. The background is a collapsible unit that is white on one side and black on the other. The Sekonic light meter is almost 20 years old and still works great. The Camera and lens are both over 10 years old and still sharp as a tack. The setting that I use 95% of the time for studio portraits is ISO-100, Aperture f/8 and Shotter speed at 1/160. In the pictures below I used a black background and feathered the main light to kept it off the background. I used a Dusty Rose gel to put an accent light on the background. The model was a very attractive young lady named Shay. She was wonderful to work with.