Design Nomenclature / Light & Optics

Loop lighting

Also called loop

Key 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.

Plan view with the key on the camera's side of the subject, the azimuth arc reading thirty degrees off the camera axis to camera-left — fifteen short of Rembrandt's forty-five — and slightly raised, annotated to say the nose shadow loops down toward the mouth corner and stops clear of the cheek shadow, which is the gap that separates the two patterns.

In practice

The line between loop and Rembrandt is exactly whether the two shadows have merged. Move the key ten degrees and the name changes.

Not to be confused with

How this term connects

Butterfly lightingKey lightRembrandt lightingShort lightingSplit lightingLoop lighting
Related Confused with