Natural Portraits

There is almost always a perceptible shift in their mood and attitude.

Let the camera get out of the way. A subject can quickly lose energy and enthusiasm for the shoot if they notice the photographer spending a lot of time fiddling with their camera settings while they wait around. Quickly read the scene and get your settings out of the way so you can move onto focusing on interacting with your subject.

Image by Martin Novak. Nikon D camera, Nikkor 85mm F1,8 lens. The models here were a mother with her adult children. It was the second time I photographed them, so I knew how they behaved in front of the camera. No unexpected clouds passed overhead. The models were great, and everything went smoothly and effortlessly. This shoot was also successful in terms of sales. Casting is hugely important for creating successful stock images. People should suit the roles they play in your photos.

I also do not use artificial lighting when shooting portraits outdoors. Using flashes can enhance a photo in some respects, but when it comes to creating authentic stock images, artificial light is not your friend. When I absolutely need to add some light, I use reflectors to give the same light temperature as natural light.

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The exceptions, of course, are night scenes, where all the lights are artificial. Communicate with them, make jokes, and let them move. Image by Damir Khabirov. Canon 60D camera, EF 50mm 1. But more than that — it also helps you create playful and fun shots. You can provoke the movement by playing music and getting them to dance. They can also run towards you or away from you as you take photos.

They can hold hands and spin. Feel free to be creative, and although these may not be the shots you planned, they can really turn out to be beautiful.

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You can secretly tell only one of them to do it to the other, to add some surprise. Especially if they feel uncomfortable. So, now that they are relaxed in front of you and your camera, direct them to always maintain one point of contact. Place them in flattering and natural positions, so they feel comfortable both with you and with each other. Love is beautiful, but capturing it in photos is trickier than it sounds.

Dunja Djudjic is a writer and photographer from Novi Sad, Serbia. You can see her work on Flickr , Behance and her Facebook page. Opposed to High-Key portraits, this technique is used only to highlight a specific part of the subject's face, often half of the face if only one light source is used or just the facial contour if two lights are used. In modern photography, the fill-in light is used to control the contrast in the scene and is nearly always placed above the lens axis and is a large light source think of the sky behind your head when taking a photograph.

As the amount of light is less than the key-light main-light , the fill acts by lifting the shadows only particularly relevant in digital photography where the noise lives in the shadows.

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• 2. Find the best light.

It is true to say that light bounces around a room and fills in the shadows but this does not mean that a fill-light should be placed opposite a key-light main-light and it does not soften shadows, it lifts them. The relative intensity ratio of the Key-light to the fill-light is most easily discussed in terms of "Stops" difference where a Stop is a doubling or halving of the intensity of light.



A 2 Stop reduction in intensity for the Fill-Light would be a typical start point to maintain dimensionality modelling in a portrait head and shoulder shot.. Back lights, or accent lighting , serve the purpose of accentuating a subject. Typically a back light will separate a subject from a background.

Examples would be a light shining onto a subject's hair to add a rim effect or shining onto a background to lift the tones of a background. There can be many accent lights in a shot, another example would be a spotlight on a handbag in a fashion shot. When used for separation, i.

Natural Light Portraits - With Glynn Lavender

Think in terms of a "kiss of moonlight", rather than a "strike of lightning", although there are no "shoulds" in photography and it is up to the photographer to decide on the authorship of their shot. A kicker is a form of accent light. Often used to give a backlit edge to a subject on the shadow side of the subject.

Butterfly lighting uses only two lights. The key light is placed directly in front of the subject, often above the camera or slightly to one side, and a bit higher than is common for a three-point lighting plan. The second light is a rim light. Often a reflector is placed below the subject's face to provide fill light and soften shadows. This lighting may be recognized by the strong light falling on the forehead, the bridge of the nose, the upper cheeks, and by the distinct shadow below the nose that often looks rather like a butterfly and thus, provides the name for this lighting technique.

Butterfly lighting was a favourite of famed Hollywood portraitist George Hurrell , which is why this style of lighting is often called Paramount lighting. These lights can be added to basic lighting plans to provide additional highlights or add background definition. Not so much a part of the portrait lighting plan, but rather designed to provide illumination for the background behind the subject, background lights can pick out details in the background, provide a halo effect by illuminating a portion of a backdrop behind the subject's head, or turn the background pure white by filling it with light.

Finding Good Natural Light for Portraits (‘Good Light’ Series)

Most lights used in modern photography are a flash of some sort. The lighting for portraiture is typically diffused by bouncing it from the inside of an umbrella , or by using a soft box. A soft box is a fabric box, encasing a photo strobe head, one side of which is made of translucent fabric. This provides a softer lighting for portrait work and is often considered more appealing than the harsh light often cast by open strobes.

Hair and background lights are usually not diffused. It is more important to control light spillage to other areas of the subject. Snoots , barn doors and flags or gobos help focus the lights exactly where the photographer wants them. Background lights are sometimes used with color gels placed in front of the light to create coloured backgrounds.

Windows as a source of light for portraits have been used for decades before artificial sources of light were discovered. According to Arthur Hammond, amateur and professional photographers need only two things to light a portrait: A white reflector placed to reflect light into the darker side of the subject's face, will even the contrast. Shutter speeds may be slower than normal, requiring the use of a tripod, but the lighting will be beautifully soft and rich.

The best time to take window light portrait is considered to be early hours of the day and late hours of afternoon when light is more intense on the window. Curtains, reflectors, and intensity reducing shields are used to give soft light. While mirrors and glasses can be used for high key lighting.

At times colored glasses, filters and reflecting objects can be used to give the portrait desired color effects. The composition of shadows and soft light gives window light portraits a distinct effect different from portraits made from artificial lights. While using window light, the positioning of the camera can be changed to give the desired effects. Such as positioning the camera behind the subject can produce a silhouette of the individual while being adjacent to the subject give a combination of shadows and soft light.

And facing the subject from the same point of light source will produce high key effects with least shadows. There are many different techniques for portrait photography. Often it is desirable to capture the subject's eyes and face in sharp focus while allowing other less important elements to be rendered in a soft focus.