Rembrandt Window Lighting

Like I just mentioned, for most window light portraits, we don’t have the subject facing directly toward the window. Instead, we position them so the window light is mostly side-lighting them. However, to get that classic, dramatic window light portrait, we position our subject so a little of that window light spills onto the side of their face that is facing away from the window in the shape of an upside-down triangle. This is called “Rembrandt lighting,” and while it’s originally from the Baroque period of the 1600s, it is still an incredibly popular style of lighting used today. In the example seen above, the right side of her face (from the camera position) is lit by the window on the right side of the image, but a little bit of that light is also falling on the other side of her cheek, creating an upside down triangle of light below her eye.