All lighting setups
Split Lighting: How to Get the Half-Lit Face
Split lighting places the key light directly to the side of the subject, so one half of the face is lit and the other falls into shadow. It is the most severe of the classic portrait patterns and the least forgiving.
How to set up split lighting
- 1Place the key light at a full 90 degrees to the side of the subject.
- 2Keep it at roughly their eye level rather than raising it.
- 3Have the subject face the camera straight on so the division runs down the centre of the face.
- 4Decide deliberately whether to add fill. No fill means true black on the shadow side, which is usually the point.
How to recognise it
A vertical division down the middle of the face, with the shadow side reading close to black and often only a single catchlight in the lit eye.
Best for
- Dramatic, high-contrast character portraits
- Musicians, athletes and anything that wants edge
- Black and white work, where the hard division is the composition
When to avoid it
Beauty, corporate and anything where the subject needs to look approachable. It also emphasises skin texture on the lit side, which not everyone wants.
The prompt for this look
This is the wording that recreates split lighting in an AI image model. The builder below already has it selected, so add your subject and adjust the lens to taste.
split lighting, key light at 90 degrees to the side at eye level, one half of the face lit and the other in shadow