A quick lesson in catchlights

Chances are if you haven't studied portrait photography, you may not have even heard of catchlights. But you see them everyday. What is a catchlight? It is the reflection of a light in the subject's eyes in a portrait, a very important element in any good picture. If a subject's eyes have no catchlights, they will have no life in them. Here are some examples of different catchlights:

If you've been in my studio in the past month, you may have noticed my umbrella was replaced with a huge square light box. The result is a large square catchlight in the eyes.

Here is a shot from my old light setup, with the circle umbrella. You can even see the dark area in the middle where my control box is, and the line coming down from that is the light stand.

Outdoor catchlights often reflect much of the scene in front of the subject- including trees, buildings, etc. And many times, a self portrait of the photographer!

And the bigger the eyes, the bigger the catchlights. Here's one of a cow!


Indoor natural light catchlights can give a clue as to how many windows there are in a room. Here you can see 2 separate lights, which means 2 windows, one near and to the right of the camera, and one far away and to the left.

Here is an indoor one where you can see the light reflected on the floor in front of the subject.

This is an example of what you typically get when you use a camera's on-board flash. A tiny little pinhole light.

In this one, the subject "fell out of" the light. With no catchlight, the eyes are dull and lifeless.

Catchlights don't just show up in pictures, they are always visible in people's eyes. The next time you're talking with somebody, pay attention to their catchlights. Sometimes you will see some amazing and interesting things!