What Is Clamshell Lighting?

Clamshell lighting is described as a light source and a fill card,or two light sources, on the same line as the camera with one over the lens and one under the lens. you can use two sources with umbrellas, soft boxes, strobes, studio guns, whatever. With small strobes or soft boxes, you can try powering them down and getting a very large aperture for shallow depth of field.

Here's a SIDE VIEW of the setup:

Looking at the setup, from the side, we see, A background, a model, a top source, and a bottom source, then the camera shooting Portrait orientation!

Try shooting something new today, like your own clamshell photo shoot! Try Soft Boxes and flash, try a shoot through umbrella, or a bounce umbrella. Time to experiment, and see the effects of different light! Play with power settings on your flash speed lights. Get your light in tight, and try really low power. Can you get down to f2.8? 

You never know unless you try!

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