Rim Light

Video Tutorials

How to Build a 3-Light Hard Light Setup That Feels Like a Comic Book Panel

There’s a particular kind of image that stops you cold when you scroll past it. High contrast, a little gritty, lit like a frame from a graphic novel. It’s not accident. That look comes from deliberate choices about light quality, color temperature, and the willingness to let shadows be shadows. I’ve been chasing that aesthetic for years in my commercial work, and most of the time I was overcomplicating it. Too many modifiers.

October 18, 2026

Video Tutorials

Reading Light: How to Identify and Build Classic Studio Lighting Patterns From Scratch

Every time I take on a new editorial client, I pull out my phone and open the lighting diagram app I built myself. Before a single strobe fires, I want a plan. But that habit only developed because I spent years doing the opposite — guessing, adjusting, guessing again — and occasionally ruining shots because I couldn’t read what the light was actually doing. The skill I was missing wasn’t gear knowledge.

July 4, 2026

Lighting

Rim Lighting: Adding Drama and Separation

Rim lighting — a light positioned behind the subject that creates a bright outline along their edges — is one of the most dramatic tools in portrait photography. That bright edge separates the subject from the background, adds a three-dimensional quality that flat lighting can’t achieve, and creates an immediate sense of production value. What Rim Lighting Does When a light source is positioned behind and slightly above a subject, it skims across the edges of their hair, shoulders, and body contour.

March 3, 2026