By: Jeremy Murphy
Red carpets are supposed to be fantasy factories. The gowns are steamed, the diamonds are borrowed, the hair is shellacked into submission, and somewhere behind the velvet ropes, a phalanx of photographers waits to turn a celebrity’s three-second pause into the image that travels around the world by breakfast.
But as the 2026 Vanity Fair Oscar Party reminded everyone, even the most glamorous room in Hollywood can be undone by bad lighting. Guests reportedly complained that the party’s red carpet lighting was bright and unforgiving, with Page Six describing A-listers as “fuming” over harsh, high-definition photos that left them feeling overexposed. The Daily Beast called it a “photography fiasco,” noting that stars appeared washed out and unflattered under the lights.
For Bentley Meeker, that kind of moment is not simply a technical misfire. It is a reminder that lighting is not just illumination. It is seduction.
“There are two ways to light things,” says Meeker, the president and founder of Bentley Meeker Lighting & Staging and Bentley House Studios. “You can go dead on, or you can have a little bit of angle to the light. A little bit of angle gives you texture. You can soften the colors. You can make the colors warmer.”
Meeker knows the difference between “lit” and luminous. For 35 years, he has created lighting environments for more than 10,000 events, from galas and fashion shows to movie premieres, Broadway openings, product launches, and private celebrations. His client list includes Paul McCartney, Prince, Rihanna, Earth, Wind & Fire, Lionel Richie, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Wyclef Jean, Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, Ralph Lauren, Madonna, Carolina Herrera, Karl Lagerfeld, and Alexander Wang, among others.
He has also lit Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, her 35th and 40th birthday parties, Bill Clinton’s milestone birthdays, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign events. Michelle Obama once commissioned him to create a bespoke sculpture for a Nordic States State Dinner. His work has been shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Southampton Arts Center, the National Arts Club, and the CORE Club, and he created large-scale public art pieces, including “The ‘H’ in Harlem” and lighting for Burning Man’s Temple in 2011, 2013, and 2015.
So, when Meeker looks at a red carpet, he does not see a step-and-repeat. He sees a portrait studio with traffic.
“Perfunctory lighting in a step-and-repeat scenario is often what people are happy with,” he says. “It’s good enough. But we understand that’s probably going to be the picture. So, we approach it with more art.”
That art is almost invisible when it works. Lights are placed slightly above the subject, not blasted straight at eye level. A touch of warmth instead of cool, clinical white. A subtle shadow that creates shape without turning the carpet into a film noir set. A carefully chosen amber that gives skin “a little more of a rosy hue.”
“My job is to make the ladies look beautiful,” Meeker says. “That has been my job from the first time I ever stepped onto an event.”
The trick, he says, is designing lighting that flatters everyone, because no designer can ask Julia Roberts or Olivia Rodrigo to turn six degrees to the left. “They’re going to stand how they’re going to stand, and they have to look good,” he says. “It’s incumbent on us to figure out a system that accommodates all of that.”
That is why Meeker is skeptical of the current trend toward broader, flatter, cooler lighting. It may reveal everything, but revealing everything is not always the point. “There’s something mysterious about a little bit of shadow,” he says. “It’s sexy. It’s subtle. You don’t clock it, but you feel it.”
In the age of filters, FaceTune, and unforgiving digital photography, Meeker says the goal has not changed. In fact, great lighting can make post-production less necessary. “Photographers love us because they don’t have to retouch all their photographs,” he says. “We get comments about it all the time.”
The biggest mistake is assuming red carpet lighting is just a utility, something to be wheeled in at the last minute after the entrance is built. Meeker says red carpet setups often happen late because they occupy the same path guests use to enter the event. That can make them feel rushed or routine. But the last tweak, he insists, is everything.
“95 percent of the work only creates five percent of the look,” he says. “The last five percent creates 95 percent of the look. It’s that last little hint of work that makes all of it happen.”
In other words, glamour is not an accident. It is an angle, an amber glow, a tiny shadow near the eye socket, and, sometimes, the difference between a photo guests love and one they wish the internet would forget.
