Butterfly lighting

Also called Paramount lighting, glamour lighting

Light & Optics
Composition
2D & 3D

Key placed high and directly on the camera axis, casting a small symmetrical shadow beneath the nose and a matching one under the chin. It flatters cheekbones and suppresses skin texture, which is why the 1930s portrait departments standardized on it.

Plan view with the key on the camera axis between camera and subject — marked zero degrees, so it is directly above the lens rather than off to a side — steeply raised, the subject facing square to the lens, annotated to say the shadow it drops beneath the nose is the symmetrical butterfly the pattern is named for.

Not to be confused with

Loop lightingKey about thirty to forty-five degrees off axis and a little above eye level, producing a small nose shadow that loops down toward the corner of the mouth without ever touching the cheek shadow. The mildest of the named patterns, and the default for most portraiture.

Origin

Butterfly for the shape of the nose shadow; Paramount for the studio whose portrait department made it house style.

How this term connects

Related Confused with

Not to be confused with

Origin

Related

How this term connects

Referenced by