Design Nomenclature / Light & Optics

Split lighting

Also called side lighting, half lighting

This entry has not been translated yet and is shown in English.

Key placed ninety degrees to the side and near eye level, so the terminator runs down the centre of the face: one half lit, the other in form shadow. The most severe of the named patterns, and the one that rakes every texture on the lit side.

Plan view with the key at a full ninety degrees to camera-left, level with the axis and almost level with the eyes, so it rakes the subject from the side — annotated to say the terminator falls straight down the centre of the face, dividing it into a lit half and a shadowed half.

Not to be confused with

How this term connects

Form shadowLoop lightingLow keyRembrandt lightingTerminatorSplit lighting
Related Confused with