Loop lighting is a very common style of portrait lighting that is seen very often in portrait photography. In fact, if you’ve spent much time at all shooting in a studio, you’ve probably employed loop lighting without specifically trying to.
Looking through my own archive of portraits, I found I have quite a lot of loop lighting examples where that wasn’t a specific goal. Since this type of lighting can be flattering and also adds some drama, thanks to the shading it creates, it’s no wonder that loop lighting appears in a lot of portrait shots.

Loop lighting provides definition to facial features like the nose in addition to creating a shadow along the jawline and neck opposite the side from the light source. By altering the relative position of the main light and/or using a fill reflector or other light source, one can tailor the overall look to create the desired final image.

This article in its entirety was written for PetaPixel.com. You can view the entire content by using this link to view it at Petapixel.com: https://petapixel.com/loop-lighting/