Three-point lighting
The default studio recipe: a main light shapes the face, a softer fill opens the shadows, a back light peels the subject off the background.
See it
What it is
Three lights, three jobs. The key is the main source, placed off to one side and slightly above eye level: it decides where the shadows fall and how sculpted the face looks. The fill sits on the opposite side, dimmer and softer, and lifts those shadows just enough to keep detail without erasing the shape. The back light hits the subject from behind and above, drawing a bright edge that separates them from the background. It has named variants that people use loosely as synonyms but are not: a hair light is aimed specifically at the top of the head, and a kicker comes from behind and off to one side as a raking edge accent on the cheek or shoulder.
Reach for it when you want a subject to read as competently lit and nothing more: interviews, headshots, product hero shots, corporate video. It is the lighting equivalent of a system font. Push the key further to the side for drama, flatten the ratio for friendliness, kill the fill entirely for noir.
Gotcha: the ratio between key and fill does the emotional work, not the number of lights. A 2:1 key-to-fill ratio reads soft and commercial, 8:1 reads moody and serious. People also crank the back light until the subject wears a halo, which stops looking like separation and starts looking like an angel costume.
Ask AI for it
Light this subject with a classic three-point setup: a soft key light at roughly 45 degrees to camera-left and slightly above eye level creating a gentle shadow down one side of the face, a weaker fill from camera-right at about a 3:1 ratio so shadows keep detail, and a back light behind and above the subject drawing a thin bright rim along the shoulders and hair. Keep the background a few stops darker than the subject so the separation reads clearly.