My Sunday Series on Outdoor Portraits remains on hiatus as I consider changing this day’s theme to Available Light Portraiture, which is what today’s post is about. This post also takes a look at one of my most popular models, Pam Simpson aka Satin Pam.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
One of Farace’s Law’s is that there’s never enough space indoors to shoot portraits and I often find myself pressed up against the opposite wall from a subject when shooting under these kinds of conditions. This way of working translates into having to use different focal length lenses than what I might prefer but that doesn’t mean you can’t make great portraits no matter what focal length lens you have.
A corollary to this Law is that there is also never enough light to shoot indoors. Fast lenses are always a big help and you can always use speedlights for fill or even the main light. I’ll occasionally do that for fill but glamour portraiture, to me, is all about soft light and there’s nothing softer than window light.
Lenses? Let’s Pick a Lens
The lens that I typically choose for glamour photography is determined by whether I’m shooting in my home studio or on location outside or in my home, where today’s featured image was made. Many times, the available light dictates the use of prime lenses like my go-to EF 85mm f/1.8 lens that can be used with a full frame or Canon APS DSLR. Don’t discount the so-called “normal” 50mm lens. Even a normal lens can be used to make great shots. The M. Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 lens that I used for today’s portrait acts like a 90mm lens when shot in a Micro Four-thirds format.
How I made this portrait: No model I’ve ever photographed was as much a chameleon as Ms. Simpson. Just do the most basic search on this blog to see examples where she looks like a completely different person than the youthful insouciance you see on display here. For this portrait, I photographed her using window light from the Southeast-facing window in the guest room of my Daisy Hill home. This was not the first shot I made of this pose but was actually the twelfth shot of 29 in this sequence! About half were verticals but I liked this horizontal version batter. You can find more posing tips on this blog by using the Search (magnifying glass icon) function box in the upper right-hand corner. For something more lasting, you can pick up a copy of my book, Posing for Portrait and Glamour Photography that’s available on Amazon used, at affordable prices.
The camera used here was the entry-level Olympus E-M10 Mark I, proving you don’t need expensive equipment for glamour or boudoir photography. The lens was a Olympus M.45mm f/1.8, which is a lens I use for available light and continuous light portraits when working in the Micro Four Thirds system.The exposure of 1/30 sec at f/2.5 and ISO 800 with a plus two and one-third stop exposure compensation to compensate from the strong back light coming fro the window.
The final image was cropped ever-so-slightly but used the original image file’s aspect ratio. I avoided cropping images for years but now find myself cropping portraits a little tighter than before to increase immediacy and impact. The JPEG image file was lightly retouched with a touch of Color Efex’s Glamour Glow to add a bit of soft focus.
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If you’ want to learn how I shoot available light glamour and boudoir portraits, please pick up a copy of Available Light Glamour Photography which is available new from Amazon.com for $29.95 or used starting around twenty-two bucks, as I write this. The Kindle version is $28.45 for those preferring a digital format.