Commercial Lighting Recipe Guide

Commercial photography setups are seldom creative nor particularly complex. They are precise with specific parameters. At times you’ll be focused on showing the texture of the fabric in an ecommerce shoot.

For another client you could be creating a sleek, stylized portrait to represent an individual’s personal brand message. While commercial setups aren’t always creatively challenging, your technique must be on-point and you must be acutely aware of what the client is looking for. That’s a challenge in itself!

Commercial shoots are polished with everything controlled, purposeful and working together to create a successful image. While this may not sound as thrilling as creative editorial photography, it’s actually just as rewarding! The word ‘commercial’ means engaged in commerce, which means there is money on the line and fantastic opportunities for money to be made… by you!

This commercial lighting guide will prepare you with a wide range of solutions and styles for upping your game or breaking into commercial photography.

You can select your favorite setups and recreate them in your own space with your own gear. From there you can create a ‘menu’ of lighting setups for your clients to choose from. Need something high key, clean and lifestyle? No problem, they have choices. Need something a bit more high fashion or dramatic? You’ve got choices for that as well.

Furthermore, all setups included in this guide have been configured for full-length shots, but they can easily be used for closeup or mid-length images. This gives you flexibility no matter your crop or composition.