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My attempts at creating a hair light have been less than successful; I can get a hint of highlight but nothing like I see in the pro shots. What are the things that I should be adjusting in terms of location, height, distance, and light modifiers?

mattdm
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Craig Walker
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    The accepted answer is one short paragraph and a diagram. As I said in the bounty, that's a good start — but that's not all there is to this topic. Why do it that particular way? What other options are there? When would one choose one over the other? – mattdm Feb 19 '19 at 22:13

1 Answers1

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I'd put a hair light almost behind the model and a bit high and try to have it very focused so it wouldn't spill into the camera, using a grid or snoot. Something like this:

Community
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che
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    And once you have your hair light set up, try turning of all other lights and take an image with just the hair light (keeping your exposure the same). This will quickly show you if your hair light is bright enough. – MikeW May 03 '12 at 09:40