Portrait Tips – Combining Flash and Sunlight
June 2nd, 2009
Don’t miss my location portrait workshop in Southern Utah June 25th-28th
With the economy looking bleak for a while I’ve decided to expand my horizons a bit and get into personal fine art portraits – particularly bridals and boudoir. With that in mind, I’ll be shooting a lot of both for a while. If you’re interested, contact me to schedule your shoot!
For the Photographers
Don’t be afraid to use your flash outside, even on sunny days. For these shots, we used two flashes and a reflector to supplement the plentiful sunlight.
Get creative with the reflector – On a typical outdoor shoot, you’ll often see photographers using reflectors to bounce light straight back into the model’s face. For these shots, we had the reflector back and to the side, to create the golden highlights on her cheekbones, and in her hair.
Use hotspots to emphasize features – In the bottom frame, I used a snooted strobe to highlight the bride’s eyes and cheeks.
Mix hard and soft light – In all of the photos, I mixed soft light from the reflector and umbrella with hard light from the sun and the extra flash I used to create hot spots.
Have an assistant on hand – Shooting outdoors with large reflectors and umbrellas can get unwieldy. Take an assistant to help battle the random gusts of wind – and don’t forget to weigh down those stands so the lights don’t tip over!
Here’s the setup from the last shot:
Reflector master = RoadyStyle