Lighting How To

While Glamour photography might not be everyone’s cup of tea, there are still many photographers out there who specialize in this revealing type of erotic portraiture. One such photographer is Nino Batista who is regarded as one of the premier glamour photography and retouching educators in the U.S.

In the below video, Batista shares his four favorite “go-to” lighting set-ups for capturing Glamour photography. In the tutorial, he starts off by demonstrating a six-light set-up, which he uses for commercial shoots, including magazine covers.

In the second setup, he shows how to shoot with a strobe combined with natural light. “One of my goals in a mixed light setup is to try to make it seem as if there is no strobe light in the shot,” Batista notes.

In the third setup, he combines a single strobe with a hard light. “This is going to create great specular lighting, it’s going to be amazing on catch lights, and it’s going to add that kind of luminous look to her skin,” he says. “And we have a beautiful hard shadow on the wall behind her to play with.”

Batista’s final lighting set-up is a four-light, super soft commercial look: “Our final set-up is flat out stealing from beauty lighting set-ups, bottom line.”

Again, as we mentioned at the top of this story, Glamour photography is not for everyone and parts of the video might be considered NSFW. But if you’re interested at all in erotic portraiture in a studio setting, Batista’s lighting tips are on point.

You can see more of his tutorials on his YouTube channel. You should also check out this video where two pros go head-to-head to test whether it’s better to shoot portraits with a flash or in natural lighting, and this tutorial on bikini Glamour photography.