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Too bad some of that detail is her crusty nose! :)
Her nose isn't that bad. You should see my mom's. Poor Roscoe. It looks like he has chronic shedding, on his nose...
If you like I can explain how this was lit... most of it you should be able tell from the reflections in her eyes. :)
I can see it was a light above her. And the camera is probably halfway under the light
For this shot I used TWO softboxes, but I could have used a softbox and an umbrella, or even a white sheet and and two bare bulbs to get something similar. You can do it with DIY gear. :)
First, the 'unusual' part. I'm using a 3X4' softbox as the background, which is what's giving me that pure, pure white. I've only minimally dodged the bottom corners where there was a bit of falloff... they were dingy. I could have addressed that in camera, but I'll get to that later. Using a big light as a background also gives you a gorgeous 100% wrapping rim light, which isn't very emphasized here since it's balanced with the key light, but it's a very pretty effect IMO.
The key light was a 2X3' softbox, but it could have been any source... the softbox just makes the light softer and wrap the subject more, which can bring out a lot of detail. Then again, scraping the light from a bare bulb across a subject can add a lot of detail too... I just like the softer look. It's more glamorous and less edgy, with less contrast and brighter shadows. An umbrella would be fine for this too, and would probably give better, rounder catchlights in the eyes, honestly. I set the key light to expose at ~F13... and here's the trick... by setting the background to expose about two stops over the key light (~F22), it gets completely blown out in the end result. It's white because it's TOO INTENSE! Make sure not to go too bright though, or you'll start getting mad, milky lens flare coming from everywhere, which can be a cool look, but not what I'm going for here. I try to keep it within 2-3 stops of the key light.
Now here's something confusing. :) The key light was at max power, 500Ws, to get an aperture of ~F13 for this shot. You'd think that the background would have to be at MORE than full power to expose two stops brighter... but it all depends on where lights get placed. The background was only 2' from Peaches to make it easier to line her up in front of it, but the key light was probably around 8' away to give me room to work. Because light falls off by the inverse square of the distance, the background is actually much dimmer than the key light! The key light is four times further than the rim light... and that means it's 1/16 as powerful as the rim light by the time it gets to the subject, if they were both set to the same power. The background strobe was barely turned up at all! I'm estimating it was set three to four stops dimmer, but I'd have to go check. So, to get rid of those dingy corners, i could have turned it up a bit more. :)
That's basically it. It's a simple two light setup, using one light for the key, and one light for both the background and a rim light. You can do it in your livingroom with minimal gear. I did!
And just to reiterate... softbox == umbrella == flash through a white sheet == flash bounced off the ceiling... it's just a 'soft' light. You don't need a softbox. All you need are flashes you can place somewhere other than on the camera, the rest can be scraped together from crap around your house. What a softbox gives you over the other techniques is more control over where light is spilling, and a decent looking catchlight in the eyes... but you can solve this any number of ways. Tinfoil and cardboard work! :)
Also *copies and pastes*
Except for the shedding. So much shedding.