Taking good portraits outdoors can be easy if you have some basic light modifiers on hand. A bright sunny day can render beautiful, vibrant colors but can also present a high degree of contrast: a primary concern when shooting portraits.
The setup: To illustrate more effectively, we created a typical backyard portrait set-up with our model. As the model faced the camera, she had to squint as she was also facing the afternoon sun. We zoomed all the way in on her face and took a shot
The before shot: Here’s that contrast we talked about. In addition to the model’s squint, notice how bright her forehead is compared to the shadows cast from her nose and chin in this result shot.
Helping hand: To reduce the contrast, we had a friend of the model hold a Photoflex 12″ Translucent LiteDisc up to diffuse the sunlight falling on the model’s head and shoulders. This eliminated the harsh shadows, but also darkened the lighting slightly. Had we been in the Manual shooting mode, we would have compensated by adjusting either the aperture or the shutter speed (to see how this process works, check out the other lessons on webphotoschool.com demonstrating Depth Of Field). But since we had the camera set to Program mode, we simply composed the shot and pressed the shutter all the way down.
Shadows fade: Notice how much more we can see the model’s eyes, and that the shadows have diminished drastically.
A fine reflection: For a final touch, we had our model hold a Photoflex 22″ White LiteDisc reflector just under her face to bounce sunlight up into the shadow areas.
The “After” shot: We took another shot and viewed it on the playback mode of the camera. The shadows under the eyes and nose have been eliminated, and the bottom LiteDisc has created a nice “sparkle” in the model’s eyes.
For a full body shot using this technique, you would simply use larger LiteDisc reflectors.
Learn more!
