butterfly lighting
n.— «I usually place my beauty dish as close to the model as I can. Why? Because the closer the light is to your subject, the softer the light. My dish is placed high above the face, angled down on it at about a 45 degree angle. It also can be placed directly centered above the model’s face. This is normally referred to as “paramount” lighting. It got its name from Paramount Studios. This lighting was used constantly as a female “glamour” light. Remember the old Hollywood portraits made famous by photographers like George Hurrell? He used this lighting to accent the cheekbones and give a broad look to a narrow face. It is also sometimes referred to as “butterfly lighting” because of the small butterfly shadow under the nose.» —“Beauty Lighting” Fashion Photography Blog Sept. 28, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...