Lighting Setup for Photographing a World Champion Boxer

Lighting  •  Photography Tips

When photographing world champion boxer, Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillen, professional photographer Dustin Snipes knew that he wanted to highlight the athlete’s muscles. To show off the muscles, Snipes knew he had to have a perfect lighting setup. Take a look at the following video to see how he did it:

Having done these types of shoots before, Snipes already had a good idea of what kind of lighting setup he was going to be working with. The following photos will give you a closer look at the lighting setup and what Snipes was able to capture using it:

Here’s a look at the lighting setup.

One of the finished images.

Snipes followed the same lighting setup for most of the poses with the exception of a beauty dish overhead looking directly down on Quillen to cut into the muscles. He positioned this light differently for each of the images. He added a fill light to reduce some shadows on the athlete’s body. The rim light came in the way of a reflector, whereas the two side lights helped show off the boxer’s abs.

“Mostly we were worried about making sure that his fists and his face were constantly in focus, and we didn’t have any motion blur when he was swinging.”