I’m giving my Sunday Series on Outdoor Portraits the day off as I consider changing that day’s theme to Available Light Portraiture. Today’s post takes a look at the concept of using available light giving a few reasons why you should give it a try. Best of all, the featured portrait is of the amazing Dusty.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. —Og MandinoThe composition of shadows and soft light gives window light portraits a distinct effect different from portraits made from artificial lights.—Wikipedia
It doesn’t matter what person, place, or thing that you’re photographing, the ultimate subject of any photograph is light. Whether it occurs naturally or artificially, light has four main characteristics: quality, quantity, direction and color. When it comes to portraiture, it’s the quality of the light that’s falling on a subject that ultimately determines its effectiveness.
What is Available light?
To some photographers that term means using “every light that’s available” while to others, like myself, it means using only (or mostly) the light that’s already available within a scene.
How I Made this Portrait: One of the most traditional forms of light that artists and photographers use when creating portraits is window light. For example, the image at left was captured using only the light from a South-facing, narrow window located in the living room of my former home. The model, Dusty, was posed midway between that window at camera left and my (out of frame) sofa at right, a distance of less than three feet.
The camera I used for the portrait was a Canon EOS 10D with an EF 85mm f/1.8 lens that I think was the second lens I purchased after getting into the Canon DSLR system. The exposure was 1/60 sec at f/4.5 and ISO 400. No reflector or any kind of supplementary lighting was used. The Image was lightly retouched in Photoshop and the Sunlight filter that’s part part of Color Efex was applied.
Things I Like About Available Light Portraiture
- It’s free! There’s no lighting equipment to purchase, set up, plug-in, or chew through batteries. To make photographs using window light, all you need is a camera and a subject. You can supplement the light with inexpensive reflectors that can be purchased or you make one yourself using a piece of foam core board, although that style is a bit harder to fold for travel.
It’s easy. You can see the light falling on the subject and won’t have to guess about what lighting ratio to use or move lights around or deal with accessories such as lightstands, hair lights, or booms. In this kind of situation you’ll find that the model is more relaxed and instead of wasting time fussing with lighting equipment you’ll be less distracted enabling you to make better portraits.- It’s fast. There are no lights to set up, tear down, or pack or drag through airport security or, even worse, ship as checked baggage. You also get to eliminate the cost of buying expensive shipping cases for lighting gear or the specter of damage or theft (it happens) in transit. You can work faster with the subjects receiving more and better photographs while allowing them to relax at the same time.
Give it a try!
You can learn all of my tips, tools and techniques on shooting available light glamour photography in my book surprisingly titled “Available Light Glamour Photography.” The book i shown as “currently unavailable” on Amazon but the Kindle version is $27.69 for readers preferring a digital format, .