Glam

Soft even light from the front removes shadow, and with the shadow goes texture. Skin reads smooth, lines flatten, and the face looks like the best version of itself.

It is the light of beauty advertising and portrait covers. The look carries an expectation of expense, because it takes large sources and careful placement to remove shadow without making a face look flat and dead.

The key is large, close and in front. A big soft box, a beauty dish with a sock, or a ring around the lens all put light on both sides of the nose at once.

Fill comes from below and from the sides. A white card under the chin lifts the jaw shadow, and cards either side keep the edges of the face from falling off. The whole scheme is built to leave nowhere for a shadow to sit.

The eyes save it from flatness. A large frontal source gives a big clean catchlight, and that highlight is what keeps a shadowless face from looking like a print.

Use it for beauty, cosmetics, fashion and any portrait where skin should read perfect.

Skip it for character, age and anything documentary. Removing texture removes the evidence of a life, which is usually what a character portrait is trying to show.

Butterfly lighting is one pattern with a single high frontal key and a deliberate nose shadow. Glam is the wider approach, which adds fill from below and the sides until almost no shadow survives anywhere.

The check is the nose. A small visible shadow under it is butterfly. No shadow at all is glam.

Models add a side light or a rim because they read glamour as dramatic. Say the key is soft and directly in front, and that no side light is present.

The second failure is a face so flat it loses its shape. Ask for a large clean catchlight in the eyes and a little falloff at the edges of the frame, which keeps the picture from going dead.