My Sunday series about making portraits outdoor continues today with a portrait of Farrin, who I photographed twice at group model shoots that were held in Northern Colorado. I also photographed her twin sister, Brenda, several times. Maybe my portraits of Brenda will show up in a future post in this series.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
If you feel glamorous, you definitely look glamorous. — Scarlett Johansson
Living in Colorado, it gets cold during the winter and occasionally snows and sometimes there’s lots of snow. If I lived in my wife’s home state of Florida I’d have a different way of choosing locations for shooting portraits than I do working here. For much of the year I like to shoot most of my portraits and glamour images in my home studio, my Daisy Hill home or at a close by outdoor location.
It’s All About the Light
After all, portraits, no matter where you make them, are all about light, so when looking for an outdoor location, I start the process by looking at the existing light that’s falling on a subject and evaluating the range of shadows and highlights that appear within the scene.
Learning to see light is not that difficult but takes a little practice and using your DSLR’s or mirrorless camera’s LCD preview screen after making some test exposures will help you analyze your outdoor portraits to see if your efforts are successful. Take for instance…
Backlighting is always a great technique to use for outdoor portraits but I strongly believe you’ll need to use flash to make sure that the subject is not underexposed. In this case of the featured portrait, a Canon EX580 speedlite was used to provide enough fill light so the model’s face is well illuminated. How much, you ask? Take a look at my post, When in Doubt Use Flash (for Outdoor Portraits.) that explains the concept. My guess is that with a little experience your answer about when to use flash outdoors will be most of the time.
How I made this portrait: I photographed Farrin in a friend’s backyard in Ft. Collins, Colorado. The camera used was a Canon EOS 1D Mark II N with the EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM lens (at 105mm) that I later sold. It’s been discontinued but you can pick up new/used/refurb versions of this versatile lens from many sources, including Amazon. Exposure for this portrait was 1/250 sec at f/7.1 and ISO 200 with a minus one-third stop exposure compensation. A Canon EX 580 speedlight was used with a Sto-Fen Omni Bounce diffuser to provide fill and soften the light.
Different Strokes
Last night, I was having an al fresco Mexican dinner with my wife on a park bench while sitting in front of my favorite tree in McCabe Meadows. We were watching a photographer making outdoor portraits a young girl. The photographer was using a high-end Canon DSLR and was clever in her posing, making the most of the backlighting potential at that time of day. But, and you knew there was a but didn’t you, there was no flash going off. Now I’m sure she could have given each photograph two stops or so of overexposure to compensate for the backlighting but she might be losing the richness of the background. Do me a favor, won’tcha? Next time you’re shooting outdoor portraits use the camera’s pop-up flash or stick a speedlight on the hot shoe and make one or two shots with flash to, you know, see what happens. Let me know how you like it.
If you’re interested in learning how I shoot available light glamour and boudoir portraits, please pick up a copy of Available Light Glamour Photography which is available new or used from Amazon.com for $29.95, as I write this. The Kindle version is $28.45 for those preferring a digital format.