My Sunday series on outdoor portraiture continues today with a portrait of Corinne, who was not a model and yet she is someone I photographed during a group model shoot in Phoenix. Arizona. I’ll explain how that all worked out…
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
Makeup is not a mask that covers up your beauty; it’s a weapon that helps you express who you are from the inside. —Michelle Phan
This portrait of Corinne was made at a group model shoot in Arizona. She was not a model who was part of the shoot but was one of the make-up artists working at the event and was a friend of one of the models I did photograph. (I don’t remember which one, sorry.) The model asked me to photograph her friend and I was glad to oblige and had a delightful session with Corinne, where I made 23 different images at two different locations.
For some reason, at both of the group model shoots sponsored by the late Dave Hall that I attended, I ended up having private shoots with one of the make-up artists. I don’t know why this was but it happened at both of the shoots that I attended. About the session with Corinne, including…
Five Tips for Your Own Outdoor Portraits
Search for interesting locations. Not long ago, there was an on-line discussion about what inspires people to create images. For me, it’s new things. It can be a new camera, new lens or just a new place to make photographs. When driving around I’ll make notes about locations that I think will work for a portrait session.
Many photographs are made in locations where the photographer or their subject choose to make it without considering the lighting. This approach may work for some outdoor locations and is more critical for available light portraits made indoors. My favorite place to shoot available light portraits In my former home was the kitchen. You may have a similar location and never thought how an unlikely location would be a great place to make a portrait or two.
How I Made this Portrait: When it come to outdoor portraiture, I must confess that if you give me a doorway I’ll use it as a prop. I like doorways because they give subjects something to do with their hands as well as providing a natural frame around them while adding interest to the overall portrait. Rustic doorways are even better because they have character and offer a hard-edged contrast with the soft-edged subject.
I Photographed Corrine using a Canon EOS 10D with an EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM lens (at 28mm) that’s been discontinued but you can pick up used copies of this lens from many sources, including KEH and MPB. Exposure was 1/60 sec at f/4.5 and ISO 200 with a plus two-thirds stop exposure compensation. A Canon 420EX speedlite was used to add some fill. The image was captured as a JPEG file, before I embraced RAW+JPEG capture. The file was lightly retouched and then tweaked in Vivenza and Color Efex using its Skylight filter.
Keep lighting simple. The less time spent fiddling with equipment the more time you can spend putting your subject at ease. That was especially important for portraits because Corinne was not a model and was doing the session as a favor for her friend. My outdoor portraits are sometimes made with just a speedlight or a reflector.
Watch the background. My philosophy has always been that if you watch the background, the foreground will take care of itself. Busy, ugly backgrounds can be thrown out of focus with longer focal length lenses and/or wide apertures but it’s not uncommon to have to physically clean up an site before making a portrait. Taking the time to physically clean up the area before making an outdoor portrait leaves it clean for everybody else too.
Talk to your subject. I’ll never forget the advice one of my mentors gave me years ago. When asked what was the worst thing I could do when photographing people, his answer surprised me. “If you don’t talk to the people you’re never going make a good picture.” I’ve never forgotten that advice and want to pass it along to you.
Photographing people combines elements of psychology as much as camera technology and how you personally interact with your subject will have a lot more to do with the success of a session than the camera or lens that you decide to use.
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. New copies of the book are “temporarily not available” from Amazon but you can pick up used copies starting around twenty-five bucks as I write this. Kindle copes are $27.12 if you prefer a digital format.