This article on www.wired.com caught my interest because they have some pictures of diagrams that show how the photographer, Brent Humphrys, lit Steve Carrell for the photoshoot for the cover of this month's issue.

Portrait photography is something I'm very interested in and have been studying up on. For example I'm currently reading a fascinating book called "Light: Science and Magic: An introduction to Photographic Lighting". I recently bought a bunch of light stands, a backdrop stand, and I have a few off camera flashes now. For now I'm doing the strobist method, but eventually I plan to buy some real studio lighting. Anyway, I love to see how these photographs are made.

Looks like he used a ring flash, a couple of grids and gobos, a soft box, and a couple of bare strobes. Nice. Seems like a complicated arrangement, but you can't argue with the results.