Studio Lighting Techniques

Lighting Set Ups
The direction that light falls on the subject is one of the most important things to do with photography, it completely changes the way a viewer looks at an image.
The basic directions of light are:
- Frontal
- Three-quarter lighting from both left and right
- Side 
- Back - In back lighting the camera looks directly into the light which creates a shadow of the subject in a dark silhouette against the ground.
There is also 'rim lighting', this is when the light comes from such a direction that it is blocked by the subject but enough light to highlight the object creating a 'rim of light'.
This is a diagram of where these angles are situated compared to the subject:

All of these have completely different looks in a photograph.