This week’s installment of my portrait photography tips we’re going to talk a little bit about lighting and how to position yourself for better portrait results outside. When we were at the pumpkin patch with Jack last week, I overheard a dad say to his wife…..”don’t shoot into the sun, you never want to shoot with the sun behind the kids!” Now it’s true, setting yourself with the sun behind the camera makes it easier for the camera to focus and return a good exposure. However not only does the sun shining directly in your subjects face make it difficult for your family or children to see (kids are especially prone to squinting), the hard light hitting their faces creates a very distinct shadow across their face.
Since Halloween is coming up this weekend, I went back to last year for a couple of examples. The photograph above is an example of the sunlight hitting “bugga” not straight on (I always try to avoid straight-on sun), but from the side. While it’s not a bad image, the sun puts half of his face in the super bright sun, and the other half is a super dark shadow. For fashion models, some bridals, or dramatic portraits, this type of hard shadow on the face can be acceptable. However for children and toddlers it’s not something I’m that fond of. I’d rather see both sides of the subjects face with a slightly softer, more even light from one side to the other.
However after turning him around so the son is behind him and to the right, the amount of light hitting his face is much more even, and his eyes actually have some sparkle, as opposed to being dark circles in the first picture. Figuring out the exposure is a bit different with back, or rear-quarter lit subjects. If you rely on the camera to make the decision for you (auto mode), you’ll probably end up with a face that’s too dark. Next week we’ll talk a bit more about exposure and using the manual exposure mode on your DLSR to handle this type of situation.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to use your digital SLR to take better portraits and photographs of your children and family, send an email to Jay@jacphoto.net for information on Jay’s upcoming Photography Basics Workshops!
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A great tip and very good example photos of what you’re talking about.
[...] Last week we talked about some simple ways to position yourself and your subject relative to the light (the sun for outdoor portraits) to achieve a more even light across the subject’s face. And if you remember back to the first installment of this tip series, I talked about using lenses with longer focal lengths to produce a more flattering perspective of your child’s face. The increased focal length has a secondary advantage when it comes to single subjects. Longer lenses have a much shorter depth-of-field (DOF). DOF refers to the total amount of the image that is in focus, both in front of, and behind the exact point that the camera lens is focussed on. [...]