Clamshell lighting produces a soft glamour style with minimal shadows, making it popular for beauty portraits. Setup is simple: Resembling a clamshell, place one light tilted high, just above the subject’s eye line, and a second just below, tilted with the subject in the middle. Normally used in a studio environment, here’s how to achieve clamshell lighting on location using natural light. Set your camera in Aperture Priority and shoot in continuous mode To make life simple, set your camera in aperture priority with an aperture between f/2.8 … [Read more...] about How to achieve clamshell lighting on location using natural light
natural light
Removing harsh shadows using natural light
Removing harsh, ugly shadows from what would be a beautiful portrait is relativity easy. You find a shaded area, set your camera to a low aperture of f/2.8, diffuser the light and then let Mother Nature’s light do the rest. It really is that easy. Here are the steps in more detail on how to remove harsh shadows using natural light. Find a shaded area Look for a close shade treetop canopy or an open shade area — a building or an object blocking direct sunlight — to remove your subject from direct sunlight. This solves the problem of harsh … [Read more...] about Removing harsh shadows using natural light
The recipe for balancing natural light with flash
Balancing natural light with flash isn’t complicated — once you know the recipe. The key ingredients are softening the natural light with a diffuser, exposing for the background, then adding the right amount of flash to expose the subject. Now that you know the ingredients, here’s the recipe to balance natural light with flash. Use a diffuser to soften direct sunlight Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a remote to control the sun? Sure, we could schedule our shoot early in the morning or late in the evening to avoid direct sunlight but that’s not … [Read more...] about The recipe for balancing natural light with flash
Portrait Tips: Beg, borrow or steal — whatever it takes to get catchlights
We talk about posing and connecting with our subjects and all kinds of other stuff when we make portraits, but there's one thing that matters more than that stuff and you've got to do it first. You've got to find a spot that puts catchlights in your subject's eyes. Catchlights let us see that the person is alive and they allow us to focus more on their eyes and see more from the expression. Do this to get catchlights The key to ensuring that your subject has catchlights in their eyes is to make sure that they are facing a bright light … [Read more...] about Portrait Tips: Beg, borrow or steal — whatever it takes to get catchlights
How To Make Self-Portraits: The Cheap And Easy Way
As some of you might now know, I am the kind of person that can be a perfectionist, but sometimes I also can be lazy. Reaaaaaaally lazy. Perhaps you can relate, you know, when you just don't want to do anything complicated, you just want to have fun! That's exactly how I felt when I did some really cool, easy and fun self-portraits. How to do it with minimal equipment and literally no setup - right here right now? Read on! So yesterday I was by myself at home, kind of bored, looking for something creative to do with my photography. Then, … [Read more...] about How To Make Self-Portraits: The Cheap And Easy Way
Photography Tips For Using Natural Light
Sometimes the best place to shoot isn't always the studio. Knowing some fantastic locations to shoot can put a photo shoot over the edge into the realm of "greatness ("coolness" or "awesomeness" can also describe it too, if you fancy). So now you know your spot, it's time to lug all your lighting gear into the car and haul it to the location, right? Or you can just use the natural light available. Watch as the multi-talented Denice Duff shows how to work inside with natural light. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7wlc7Rt5yM First pro tip? … [Read more...] about Photography Tips For Using Natural Light
Flowers Made Easy
Here is an easy way to photograph flowers indoors, without using fancy lighting techniques requiring studio lights or off camera flash with modifiers. All you need is indirect light through a window, a shooting table, and a silver or white reflector. Impact Desktop Shooting Table Shooting tables are great for photographing products, food, and small objects. I recently used my Impact Desktop Shooting Table to photograph flowers. The table is convenient and easy to use (and affordable). When photographing the flowers I actually placed the … [Read more...] about Flowers Made Easy
Portrait Tips: How To Use A Gold Reflector
I highly recommend a 5-in-1 reflector as a tool for helping you get terrific light under many circumstances. It should be the first lighting tool you buy, and you should learn to master it before buying more lighting. The good news is that a 5-in-1 reflector is relatively cheap. I recommend the oval shaped reflectors because they give you more room to work without covering the surface with your own shadow. The trouble is, one of the surfaces is a gold reflector and since it's included many photographers think it must be there to use for … [Read more...] about Portrait Tips: How To Use A Gold Reflector
Portrait Tip: Double Check, Let Her Rip
You know how it is: you've got a great looking subject in front of you and you're nervous to miss a shot so you start shooting and shooting and clicking and clicking and you capture the great expressions. But, when you review your images, you realize that you didn't capture the great exposure. Don't Catch the Expression and Miss the Picture This is especially common when photographers are new at working with flash or speedlights. You've got to slow down a second and verify that you've got the right exposure and depth of field, etc., then you … [Read more...] about Portrait Tip: Double Check, Let Her Rip
Shooting Portraits on Location: Natural or Flash?
The Photographer’s best tool is light, and there are many choices. Light is used to mold, define, describe and set the mood of a portrait, so knowing how to recognize the light or control it, is of ultimate importance to the artist. I’m both a natural light, or “Portraits Unplugged” kind of photographer, and also have a lot of experience with using studio strobes or portable flash, which gives me huge control. Which kind of light to use? Knowing how and when to use artificial vs natural can be a challenge. I recently photographed Ceasar … [Read more...] about Shooting Portraits on Location: Natural or Flash?
Shooting Food with Natural Lighting
One of my favorite photography categories is food and drink. A few years ago, I ran a beer blog and highlighted a “beer of the day,” meaning I had to drink and photograph a beer everyday. It was a bit excessive, but with no speedlight at the time, I learned to use natural light to photograph as best as possible. Sit By a Window and Choose an Interesting Table I was lucky enough to recently visit a local brewery during a photowalk. Knowing we were coming, they sat us right by a huge garage door — entirely plexiglass. It was sunny, but not … [Read more...] about Shooting Food with Natural Lighting
How to Use On-Camera Flash for Events
Using a flash at an indoor event is a probably the simplest way to make pictures of small groups look their best. At weddings, parties, and fundraisers, friends and families are together for a short time and they are surprisingly willing to be in a photograph. It's best to use a speedlight, not your camera's pop-up flash, but the speedlight alone will probably give you faces that are too bright, backgrounds that are too dark, and light that is too harsh. There are lots of camera settings listed below, but if you'll do the following it'll make … [Read more...] about How to Use On-Camera Flash for Events
Understanding Flash Sync Speed (It’s Simple)
I'm wholeheartedly opposed to being only a "Natural Light" photographer. I can't imagine being limited to only working with the light available on hand. I have so much fun using strobes (which are the same as flashes) to light my work and help me create in any situation. However, there are some challenges to working with strobes, and the biggest one you need to understand is flash sync speed. If your sync speed is wrong, you'll end up with a picture like you see above, or even a completely black exposure, which is so frustrating. Read on and … [Read more...] about Understanding Flash Sync Speed (It’s Simple)
