Someone mind commenting on how this shot was most likely lit?
My guess was key light on far side of room with large diffusion placed next to subject. Am I close?

Thanks,
GL

If I was lighting this I would put my key to the nose side and facing back at an angle (not sure exactly what angle-depends on how far from subject and background) towards the white background. Then I would place a white or silver bounce panel next to the key light and another one in front (camera side) of the subject. Actually back in the 70s and early 80s as a still photog doing portrait, fashion and modeling compostie work this is exactly what I did for mood shots. 99.9% of my work was done on either a white or black background, with 1 strobe and 1 reflector either silver or white depending an what I needed for the particular shot.

Thanks, great starting point. Didnt think about reflection.

GL

Obviously there's a certain amount of processing going on to dial in the contrast and what looks like grain (hard to tell in the small image), but I think it's pretty safe to say that he was shot against a hot lit background with no front fill or additional lighting. I wouldn't say that it was notably close to him because the light isn't wrapping around and filling him--it's much edgier...so I would assume it was a larger background some distance away, say 10 feet. It could have been front or rear lit but it would be easier to front light a backing that size. I would also imagine that unless the space it was shot in was quite vast, they used solids hung on either side to prevent ambient light bouncing off walls filling him in.

Had to say thanks for the tips. Here is the result from this AM. Pretty darn close:

chello.mp4 - YouTube

Thanks again
GL

I'd say that's pretty darned good! Love the bits of reflection off of the cello.

And some pretty darned good Bach!

Nice! You know what would have been fun? Just a little very contained light hitting only the cello body. Everything in the black and white, with a spot of color.

Still, nicely done.

The lighting is very good. I might try and push the contrast a little, eliminating the grays if you wanted to mimic the album cover shot more.

The playing was very nice, lots of legato. I was hearing sections where there was what sounded like audio delay, whether from the room acoustics or added in post, I don't know. She certainly didn't need any audio enhancement if effects were added in post.

All in all, very nicely done.