Remarkably Beautiful

In this FotoTV film, photographer Urs Recher discusses at length how to create a typical beauty portrait using atypical harsh lighting. In his first installment on portrait shooting, "The size of the light source", Recher discussed the difference between various sizes of light sources and incremental distances to the subject.

The main emphasis of today's film is that of modulating the face to bring out its three-dimensional characteristics. Recher achieves this by creating two distinct shadows along his model's face using a light modulator, resulting in multiple gradations from light to dark. Typically, a beauty shot is known to most as having a set-up with a large soft box placed close to the subject to create an even, soft and almost non-existent shadow. But Recher does the exact opposite in that he uses harsh lighting, which produces stylistic, sexy results on model Julia's striking face. Another important aspect of the film is the model's make-up and industry standards regarding booking models for shoots. Recher gives a comprehensive breakdown of Julia's make-up technique and application and shares important tips and tricks to enhance the beauty aspect of the shoot.

This film is a treasure trove of information for photographers interested in portrait and beauty shooting. Recher's photos are absolutely stunning and he teaches the one most important thing about photography; Photographers will never create anything remarkable if they don’t experiment and try new things.

Photographer Urs Recher has been involved in photography for a good 17 years. He is responsible for all the advertisement photography for Broncolor, Visatec, and for Kobold which are daylight, halogen and tungsten lamps.