Josh took my workshop in Houston a couple of times. His work has really grown. I saw these images and asked for a write up from him. It is this guest post. Welcome Josh Brewster to Lighting Essentials. BTW, Josh will be assisting me at the Austin workshop. A great opportunity to meet him and learn a ton about lighting and photography. Let’s let Josh tell us about the dance images.

The Assignment
My girlfriend manages a dance studio, so occasionally small gigs float my way. A few days ago, I received an email from a parent whose daughter, Kaila, is enrolled at the dance studio. Her daughter was applying to a number of intensive ballet camps this summer; each application required her headshot as well as photographs of a few dance poses. The applications were due in less than two weeks so the images needed to produced and delivered quickly.

Research and Preparation
Dance, especially ballet, is very detailed and very precise. A pose or leap can be ruined by a shoulder that is slightly too high, or an arm slightly too straight. In real-time, an incorrect pose can be covered up by swift motion or forgiven due to the complexity of the dance routine. A photograph, however, freezes that motion and removes the dancer from any form of context. Any mistake, slight or significant, becomes glaringly obvious. So in terms of an application process, she had to look perfect.

With perfection in mind, I made a few executive decisions:

1) Big lights – I like to think I am a good photographer, and I know Kaila is a phenomenal dancer, but I was fully prepared to shoot the same leap over and over again until everything (my shutter finger, her pose) matched up. Wall powered units were a must; battery powered speed lights just would not be able to keep up the pace that was required.

2) Support squad – I invited my girlfriend, Kaila’s dance instructor, and Kaila’s mom to the shoot. Between two trained dancers, a high school musical theater teacher, and myself, we were able work with the subject through every aspect of the shoot. I made sure she was aware of the key light, the dancers scrutinized her movements, and the musical theater teacher (her mom) helped her project her personality.

3) Shoot tethered – Shooting tethered into Lightroom 3 allowed the aforementioned support squad to have quick visual feedback for Kaila. More importantly, we were able to decide as a group exactly when the winning shot was captured so we did not tire Kaila out through excessive repetitions of the same dance step.

4) Shoot low – For the poses, I knew that I would want to get my camera lower to the ground, perhaps just below Kaila’s hip level. This lower perspective would make her leaps look higher and her legs longer.

Artistically, I wanted to create images that really showcased Kaila and only Kaila. Something inside me screamed “gray seamless,” so I went with it, knowing that it was versatile enough for both the head shots and the poses.

Day of the Shoot
Since the dance shots would require Kaila to be leaping around and eventually putting her hair into a bun, we decided to start the shoot with her headshots while her hair was looking nice. I wanted to deliver two different looks: one that was open and one that was slightly more dramatic.

For the first look, I set up a large 6x6ft diffusion panel to the left of where Kaila would be sitting. Then I set up a strobe with a socked beauty dish to fire through the diffusion panel. I could have forgone the beauty dish and used a standard reflector, but I wanted to diffuse the light as much as possible before it hit the subject. I was also planning on using the socked beauty for the rest of the lighting setups, so it saved time when transitioning to the next setup. To the right of the subject, I placed a large white reflector for fill and positioned a smaller silver reflector to be in her lap to bounce some light up from below. A final low-powered, gridded softbox from behind and to the right brightened up her hair and added a highlight to one side.

Photography by Josh Brewster

The second look was a classic butterfly setup. I moved the socked beauty dish directly overhead and tilted it down towards her face for the key light. The silver reflector in her lap stayed in place and the power on the hair light softbox was increased significantly. A gridded strobe was aimed to hit the background right below frame, creating a nice gradient on the background.

Photography by Josh Brewster

After getting the head shots, Kaila went off to change into her first costume; I got to work modifying the lighting setup. There were a number of considerations that I took when I chose my modifiers and placed my lights. I knew I wanted my key light to be the beauty dish and I wanted it to project Kaila’s shadow on the background. I set it up camera right.

To prevent the shadow-side of Kaila from going dark, I setup a large softbox directly to Kaila’s side. This served a double feature of filling in the shadows and creating a kicker highlight to outline her figure. To keep the light from spilling onto the background, I added a grid to the softbox. The final light was a gridded strobe high and back to camera right, once again helping outline Kaila from the background.

This lighting setup was pretty loose, meaning that there was a wide area in which Kaila would be acceptably illuminated. We shot the Kaila in her blue lyrical costume for an array of freeform poses and leaps, and then shot her in her ballet leotard for her more technical arabesque and second position en pointe poses (apparently it is really hard to hold this position on her toes… I tried and failed spectacularly).

The entire shoot went quite smoothly, with plenty of energy and laughter. Aside from being impressed with her athleticism, I was continually impressed with Kaila’s desire for perfection and great enthusiasm throughout the shoot.

Photography by Josh Brewster

After the Shoot
That night after the shoot, I sent off a proofing gallery where they could look at all the images and choose which would receive the final edits. Before I shut down my computer for the night, I did a quick check on Facebook, where I discovered that she had already posted eleven of the photos to an album and given me proper photographer credit and a link to my website. Nice. Part of me writhed, knowing that those images had not yet received the royal editing treatment. However, her friends were commenting up a storm despite my loose crops and slightly crooked horizons, so I did my best to cope.

The next day, I received a list of the photos they had selected. I edited them and sent them off. I got an email back asking if I could create a black and white version that they could hang on the wall; I obliged.

So far feedback has been pretty positive: “These are amazing. We are so happy with how they turned out! Thank you SOOOOO much. Everyone is flipping out over the pictures.”

As much as I liked hearing this, I will not be fully satisfied until I hear the news that Kaila was selected to attend the summer camp. My bet is that she will breeze on in. Until that time, however, I’ll just occupy myself by taking more photos.

Thanks Josh. Nice work and explanations as well.

Hope you all enjoyed this piece by Josh. Make sure you visit his website, and send a comment his way if you enjoyed it.

As always, follow me on Twitter, join us at Project52 and remember to check out Learn to Light for information on the workshops for this year.

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The Seattle workshop was amazing. We had a great time and made some amazing images. Using the facilities of SPA, we were able to do several setups. And the models, stylists and hair artists were off the chart. Incredible styling, hair that was spectacular and a dozen models a day for the attendees to work with. Seattle simply rocks.

I rarely get a chance to shoot at the workshops as I like to keep all attention on the attendees. And while Seattle was no exception, on Sunday there were moments when the models were waiting for the photographers to get their gear or find a location. I grabbed these 5 talented people and made natural light portraits for fun. I made only a few exposures and didn’t make a lot of variations. I wanted portraits and I wanted them to be accessible… not too overly ‘stylzed’.

If you are thinking about a workshop for this Fall, please take a look at the Learn to Light site and consider a Lighting Essentials workshop. We have added a Friday evening “Business Essentials” for all attendees who want it. In Seattle we ran about 3 hours and it was a hell of a discussion.

September
Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 12, 13
Phoenix, AZ, September 19, 20
Saint Louis, MO, September 26, 27

October 2009
Mexico (Puerto Penasco)
2, 3, 4, 5 – Special Three Day Workshop
Detroit, Michigan 10, 11
Boston, MA, 17, 18
Boise, ID 24, 25

Thursday, August 20, will find me speaking at the local ASMP chapter. Penny Dolin (ASU) and I are discussing social media, new media and how it can be leveraged into a commercial photographer’s business.

A few from the Archives you may like:

Natural Light for Natural, Subtle Beauty
Using the Sun for A Hairlight: Some Variations
Natural Light Headshots: Keeping it Simple
Serendipitous Light
Deconstructing a Portrait on Location

Now let’s take a look at the 5 portraits from the Seattle workshop… all natural light.

Here is our first portrait.

Kim in the Floppy Hat
Kim was wearing this cool hat for one of the shots and I loved how it formed around her face. Finding an edge of the gazebo we were all sharing, I was able to find some backlight from the sun and some front light from a large, single story building behind me at 18 feet away. The side of that building was white siding and it was totally in the sun. This became my source, with the sun as my background. Kim is at the edge of the gazebo, with the mid afternoon sun coming over her shoulders. I use the bright sunny sky as a backdrop. Because of my shade exposure, the sky blew out and created a flare situation that I kinda liked.

Here is part of the contact sheet from this hat shot of Kim:

You can see how I work with models when you see my contact sheets. The top row shows Kim working with an off camera look. I then begin to pull her back to my camera slowly bringing in smiles and lowering the chin to create a very accessible look. The last image seemed to be the one I love the most. I wanted a shot that looked natural, and drew the viewer into Kim’s youthful beauty.

I then moved the shot into Photoshop and cleaned up the skin. This is the layer pallet I had for the image.

I cloned the image and blended it at softlight, blurred at 7% and then backed it off to 65%. Cloning the bottom layer again, I moved above the blur layer and again blended it to softlight. This layer can be tweaked any way you want. I then used a layer of 50% gray at softlight to slightly burn and dodge for creating more contrast.

I merged those three layers in to a flattened layer called Merge Layer, cloned it and added 10% contrast and backed that layer off to 60%. Another clone and we applied Hue and Saturation, colorized to a slight sepia and then that layer is lowered to 40% opacity. Mama Shan’s Powder action added for some matting of the skin and then Tony Kuyper’s Luminosity Masks were applied to draw out a bit more local contrast.

The final shot.

Sam in the Shade.
Sam was a lot of fun to shoot. He brought a quiet maturity to the shots and I liked his sense of humor. By shooting down on him, I created a situation where he could look intense, and change the angle from the normal straight on to a more dramatic, theatrical look. I had a lot of flare coming back on Sam from the very light concrete that is int he sun behind him. Using the same spot as Kim, the same building behind me was the light source. No other lighting modifications were used.

The contact sheet:

I worked with Sam with his focus down and behind me, and I like a few of those shots. I had him look up at me just as we were completing the shoot and snagged the shot at the end. His penetrating stare was a dramatic look and I like it a lot. Cropping in this tight prevents the viewer’s eyes from escaping the image and drives them right back to the subjects gaze.

Photoshop:

You can see how simple this was. Similar to the first image of Kim, I used two layers above the original. One at softlight blend, and one at multiply blend, backed off to 40% opacity. A color balance layer and Hue/Saturation layer were used to correct and subdue the color. A final layer of 60% Gray at Softlight blend mode was used to dodge and burn a little to create a more local contrast on the image.

The Shot:

Icee is up next:
Beautiful Icee was wearing this amazing gold and bold necklace. Placing her a little closer to the edge allowed a bit more spill of daylight to add some directional light. It is subtle, but you can see how it wraps the face with a soft light. In the top row you can see that I was getting way too much sidelight on her face. I moved her forward just a bit, then took another shot to see whether the light was working out right. It was.

Contact sheet:

This shot required no Photoshop other than simple skin editing.

Kayla is in the sun in this simple, but evocative portrait. Full sun to her back, I had a pretty nice look going, but the green grass she is standing on was creating too much darkness under her chin. Spencer held a medium 5-in-one feflector down and to the side of her for a nice fill. Kayla is standing on the edge of shadow, but the hair and shoulders are in the sun. I kept the reflector in the shade otherwise the fill would have nearly blinded her.

She is kneeling and that let me keep my camera a little high and down on her, and that let me showcase her elegant chin line and eyes. That also let me keep the grass behind her and match the green cloth draped by one of the stylists.

Photoshop.

You can see how I kept to one pose and gentle, subtle changes in posing. I want my models to be fluid and smooth, not all wild throwing themselves around like crazy. Kayla worked this pose to great effect, providing me with some subtle and fun changes. You can see how subtle changes can make big differences. Working those little differences can help deliver the shot. Models who are too scattered can come close, but maybe not close enough before the pose gets changed. I love to let the models come up with things, then when I see something I love, I begin to develop it slowly. Till I get what I want.

Photoshop.

Another simple layer blend mode group. After I got the image to where I wanted it with the two blend layers, I made a composite layer and then retouched the skin a little and added some highlights with a 50% gray layer set to softlight and very soft brushes at 8%.

Kayla.

Bri was leaning up against a column with a little sun sliding around her to provide some nice flare and edge light. A breeze was kicking up and blowing her hair around every once in a while. I love that. It keeps the shot natural and when it frames the face, it is a huge plus. I kept her in a tight area and worked the face through a lot of different angles to explore the pose. You can see how Bri and I worked that angle to finally get to the shot I liked.

The light was playing beautifully off of her face. And the subtle movement still kept her in the soft light of the reflected building in the shade. I liked how the catchlights really spark the shot.

Bri.

I do love natural light, and how it looked on these folks. It also was very fast. Most of these shots took less than a few minutes to shoot as they were waiting for photographers. If you would like to share some natural light shots with us, let us see them on the Lighting Essentials Flickr Forum.

If you liked this post, please let other know. We have made it simple for you, just go up to the top right of the page and add it to any social networking sites you belong to or just Twitter it by clicking the twitter icon below.

Thanks and see you next time.

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One of the ways to separate the subject from the background is to use a spray light. The light creates a ‘halo’ of light to dark behind the subject and helps make a flat background more dynamic. It is a fairly simple technique with a lot of variations possible.

We can do this with all kinds of lights, from speedlights to normal reflectors and beauty dishes. Each can add its own look to the spray, and make it work within the framework of your image.

Before we get to this technique, I would like to let you know we are adding Montana to our workshop schedule this summer. If you are a photographer in Montana / Wyoming area, be watching the site for our Montana workshop date. UPDATE: Montana is June 20 and 21, 2009. Signup is active on the schedule page.

We are also having a pair of advanced workshops in Phoenix in February and March. We will only be taking photographers who are already familiar with lighting tools, but need to step out and get some real experience with models and shoot situations. Limited to only 3 photographers per day, the workshop is fully focused on shooting. We have models for the day, and will be working in studio and on location. Portfolio / Web Site review will be required. See the Learn to Light site for more information on January 26, 2009.

Now… on to some simple ways to create a spray light and a gradient background for your work.

The portrait of Vanessa shows how the background works to create a light-to-dark base for the face and shoulders. The background is behind her about 10 feet. This helps create a dynamic background for the portrait to sit above. The look is far different than a flat background… and keeps the eyes right on our subject.

Keeping the wall 10 feet or so behind her helps blur it from limited DOF. I am shooting here at about f8 at 1/60 at ISO 100. With an 80-200MM L at this distance, the background drops out pretty fast. I am out to about 160-170mm with the lens, so it is quite a telephoto.

Adding a hair light gives a nice shoulder accent. For this shot there is a silver/white ‘Zebra’ over the top of her and slightly back. It creates a nice little accent that is still there even against the bright background gradient. You should really watch this area, because if it the background is too bright, it can kill the separation between the highlight on the shoulder and the spray light.

Marissa is wearing a white shirt in this shot, and it separates fine from the backlight.

The closer the light, the tighter the spread of light. This shot shows the background light at 6″ from the wall.

This close up shows how close the light is actually to the wall. Just about 6″. I think being very careful with the heat is a great idea.

Now we pull the light back about 2″ to 8″ from the wall. Notice the wider spray, and slightly less contrast from center to edge.

Now to 12″ from the wall or background. The light is now very widely spread and there is a soft gradient from center to edge.

The color for the background here is “Thunder Gray.” You can get that color in seamless, and we have our back studio wall painted that color. This technique works best on the grays and darker colors.

One more shot of Marissa here:

This last shot shows how subtle the look can be. We have a hair light on Marissa, and the spray light is adding a dynamic look behind her. The hair seems to be lit, and yet in the corner we can see some dark background to let the blonde stand out.

I like the spray light look. It can be done with far more subtlety than these as well. Photographers like Platon, who shoot a lot of editorial portraiture, depend on variations of this kind of light to provide subtle definition to their subjects.

Try using a Gary Fong diffuser for some softness, or add a few layers of gel for a color. I find that spray lights work well on dark to medium gray backgrounds. Colored seamless, old canvas, walls and wallpaper can also be used to advantage.

If you try this, post a shot or two to the Flickr Lighting Essentials pool and tag it: le_spray_light. I would love to see how some of you take this idea and change it up.

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Occasionally you may have a situation where you have to do a lot of images in a very short amount of time. These kinds of gigs can be a little disconcerting if you over think them and get caught in a web of setting up and production as time slips ever so quickly by.

I was asked by a local dance company to photograph all the dancer’s headshots. I had 20 minutes to set up, one hour to shoot, and 20 minutes to vacate for another group coming in. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for setting up studio gear and the times were pretty well carved in stone. There were 28 dancers.

The images were going to be used rather small, about 2.5 inches in a brochure and the Company Director asked if they could also be made into 8×10′s for use in lobby posters.

I decided to shoot with a wide light source and fill card. Keep it really simple. My soft box was not going on this trip as the setup time prevented it, so I took my trusty shower curtain (Target, $12.99) and a few stands.

I also decided to use speedlights as I could be in, and out as fast as possible. I took the usual 550EX and 430EX as they are always in my bag. I use radio triggers whenever possible.

Our workshop site is new and has a lot of fun things… take a look at it here.

On to the simple headshot shoot.

Gentle hairlight makes a nice look for these dancer headshots

You can see what I did in the lighting shots, but I will explain that the 430 decided to go whacky on me that day. I don’t know what it was, but even fresh batteries couldn’t get it to be stable. I decided to use the sunlight, actually Northlight, coming in the clerestory windows as my hairlight and the shower curtain with the 550 for the main.

You can see the bright north sky light coming in above the set

The high clerestory windows gave a lot of light, and at the angle that it fell on the backs of the heads of the girls, it created a very nice hairlight. I shot without strobes to get the exposure for that hairlight and then matched the strobe power to the hairlight. Shutter speed for hairlight, f-stop determined by strobe.

Here is another setup shot:

You can see the location of the fill card in this image as well as the spread of light on the shower curtain.

The challenge is to get the speedlight far enough back to fill that shower curtain without having a hot spot from being too close or the speedlight having to be up so high that the recycle kills the timing. I had a lot of shots to do and waiting for a 3 second recycle would be mindnumbing. You can see that I angled the shower curtain (scrim) a bit in front of the subject to help wrap the light around the face a little.

I also have the fill card in front of the subject and to the side. I do not want to waste any fill on the backside of the subject so bringing it forward maximizes the amount of light it catches.

You can see how subtle the hair light is on this shot of a girl with very dark hair. Subtle, but there enough for the shot.

Lighter colored hair worked very well too. These two shots show how well the light works, even for a more ‘glamorous’ look.

Alissa

Michaila

I had to be careful not to pick up any of the over spill of the strobe hitting the background, a large 10×20 muslin that I threw out of focus with a wider aperture. I prefer less depth of field on shots like this. Here is one more setup shot showing how far away the speedlight is from the shower curtain. You can also see the over spill on the back.

You have to watch your angle if there is this much over spill. Bringing the camera to the right will eliminate it here.

I hope you enjoyed this simple little way to make images with very little in the amount of expense. Grab a scrim and fire away.

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Well this one is kind of fun. I found this in the archive box and remembered that it was a kinda fun little slide show. This “soundslide” offers a look into how I took a single lighting setup and shot it two ways.

I use a big softbox often when I am working with talent. Michelle is an ice skating choreographer and teacher. She needed some new shots and I wanted to do something a little different.

You can do the same thing with a large scrim and speedlights. Keep the fill cards in tight and watch the ratio between the lit and shadow parts of the face.

BTW, we have upgraded to WP 2.7 and man, is it cool. If you are running a WP Site and haven’t upgraded yet, you really should. It is, as they say, awesome.

But now let’s take a look at how a single setup can create two different shots can be made from the same light setup.

Push the go button and adjust the speakers. That mellifluous tone is yours truly. Hey… I don’t want to hear it. But you do.

I think the SoundSlide Presentation pretty well shows everything you need. Watch for more multimedia coming down the pike here.

Here is the diagram for the lighting used.

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Well we are back from the Cleveland workshop and it was amazing. Bright sun and clear skies were a super benefit… for someone somewhere… we had rain, wind, snow, rain, wind and cold. At least for Bri and I coming from the desert… We left Cleveland at about 28 degrees and landed at Sky Harbor at about 78. And that was at night.

I wanted to get a post done over the weekend, but dang… those Clevelanders (and Illinois, Indiana, Connecticut and Georgia) folks know how to have a workshop. It was amazing. We rolled with the inclement weather and did about a gazillion setups. No complaining… just rolled up sleeves and shooting shooting shooting.

Anyway, there was a discussion recently about clamshell lighting and I thought of this earlier shot I did of Briana with a simple clamshell setup. So I thought it may be nice to include it here while I put the finishing touches on this weeks Tech Sheet.

Clamshell lighting is sometimes described as a light source and a fill card, but I have always thought of it as two umbrellas, usually matching, right on the vertical axis of the camera with one over the lens and one under the lens. I have used this from very close to medium distance and love the results.

Cool thing is you can do this same lighting with small strobes as well as studio guns. With small strobes you have the added benefit (to me anyway) of powering them down and getting a very large aperture for limited DOF.

Let’s take a look at how this lighting works:

Briana is very close to the background in these shots.

As you can see in the image, I have placed Bri right next to the background. In this case it is a piece of the V-Card… fome core actually. The background gives a great specular edge (since Bri’s head is hiding most of the specular) and a wonderful little shadow all around her. Somewhat like a ring light would do. This is because the lights are so close to the lens that it has much of the characteristics of a ring flash.

Here are is the setup shot showing how the umbrellas are placed from camera:

Briana in the light of two umbrellas for a clamshell approach.

This shot shows the distance of the umbrellas from Bri as we do the shots:

Two matching 32\

I like using matching umbrellas for a lot of reasons… power is the same, faster setup and the matched catch-lights all make it worth getting two of the umbrellas that you plan on using. I could use larger ones, but I think that the smaller work better for me to get in close. I love the drop off of close lighting and the effect that it has on the skin.

Alternate Post Process on Briana with Clamshell Lighting

The lights provide a soft shadow that is directly behind the model.

You can see how soft the shadow is behind her even though there is little fill added on either side. You can add all the fill you want, it is ‘flavor to taste’ and I chose to leave it out for a more striking frontal light. This shadow just peeks around the subject and adds a bit of gradient to the image that helps the subject stand off the background even while being right next to it.

Another shot of Briana with the Clamshell Lighting:

I also like the way the white pops off the background because of the slight shadow caused by the clamshell.

Assignment to try:
1. Try your clamshell with shoot through umbrellas as well. While I am not a fan of them, they can be somewhat different in the effect they give and can become another tool for your shots. Bring your lights in as close as you can and see what effect they have then shoot the same thing with the bounce umbrella.

2. Add a fill card on both sides of your model… in close, right out of camera. Take a few shots and move them away 6 inches at a time.

3. Try using speedlights at 1/16 or even 1/32 power with shoot throughs and in very tight to try to get f-2.8 or 4 and drop the depth of field to as little as possible. Keep focus on the eyes.

Thanks for dropping by. New tech sheet coming this Friday. Watch the site for some announcements on next years workshops. They are being totally redesigned and will be better than ever. We do want to have the best workshop anyone has ever attended.

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Coming in this close can be a nightmare for the unsuspecting. Makeup must be perfect, hair perfect, every nuance of light has to fall to give the feeling of fresh and natural. And the skills in the toolset must be honed very tightly.

It goes without saying that usually a MUA is part of a team doing this work. Some models can do this on themselves, but it is so much better to have eyes that can see the whole picture instead of just a part of it. A great face also helps, as you can imagine.

Alex Bussa is an emerging young talent in Phoenix, Arizona. His work for models is getting increasingly noticed and for this self-assignment he chose a difficult subject… the macro beauty shot. Long a staple of the fashion and beauty industry, the close up beauty shot takes serious lighting control and most often a team. Hair, MU, stylist and more can contribute to creation of perfection on less than a square foot of a woman’s face.

Alex is working closely with me to build his portfolio and we wanted to do something that was unexpected and would really grab a potential client. Alex is not planning on staying in AZ forever and the excitement of NYC is calling more and more each day. We knew he had to introduce some more sophistication to his work and the closeup beauty was a great way of doing it.

For these shots, Alex used a 100MM USM F2.8 Macro lens. It has plenty of sharpness and getting in this close calls for a lens that will at least give you a little distance from the model. It can be un-nerving a bit to have to be so close to your model… mere inches away, but the focal length at least gives you that.

The first shot we see has the melted chocolate. You can see how even the lighting is across the face. The broad, soft light is from a 63 inch satin umbrella with a single 400WS strobe head. It is brought in close to the subject to give a full light to the face and also to help eliminate any possible shadows from the photographer and lens in that close.

The Makeup artist applied some rock candy to the lips in this stunning image:

Now the addition of Powdered Sugar for a more soft look. Notice how smooth the skin is. Lorri Mitchell, the MUA for the shoot took great, painstaking detail in creating a smooth surface on Jasmin’s skin without it looking too ‘cakey’ and over done.

Alex and Lorri added the sugar candy for a colorful break and to add some texture against the smoothness of Jasmine’s skin. Notice how the large satin umbrella gives a luminance to the skin and the candy.

The blue rock candy literally jumps off the page with all that light. This shot literally ‘Rocks’… sorry.

Alex is not using any side fill because the umbrella is so wide it is wrapping the light naturally around her and he didn’t want or need any more reflections in the eyes. With an umbrella like this, lots of things are possible. I love big umbrellas… now so does Alex. You can see how it all comes together in the behind the scenes images above. They were shot by Evan Romine, also a photographer, but assisting Alex for this shoot.

The addition of the fill card below Jazmin delivered a soft surrounding fill to keep the skin “open” and make sure there were no shadows under the chin and hands.

You can see how attentive Lorri is in the images… the slightest alteration can mean lots of time in Photoshop trying to make it better. These images received very little Photoshop beyond normally processing and sharpening.

Alex Bussa Photographer
Lorri Mitchell MUA
Evan Romine Assisting
Jazmin Riley Model

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In Mexico we had wonderful white Casitas to stay in courtesy of the Las Palmas Resort. They provided some remarkable shooting areas as well as natural light bouncing off all the white walls and railings.

I personally love natural light for all kinds of portraiture, but especially for headshots. The way the ambient light works the modeling of the features of the subject is something I especially like.

Our first image is one of Precilla in the afternoon sun. We are on a patio and the sun is still a little high in the sky, but behind her. The area we are on has a wall of white over my right shoulder. I exposed for her face, letting the background go bright. I like the natural look of it as well as the feeling of light. I was using a long lens with 2.8 so the DOF is really, really narrow. You can see how the light models her features against the bright sky.

In the next shot of Jazmin, we have her in the shade of the bright wall. The ambient is everywhere and she is being lit by the lightly overcast white sky. The light seems to come from everywhere and her eyes are so bright. In her eyes you see the sky and the horizon as the catchlight. No reflector was used in this or any shots on this page.

Below is a contact sheet of Jazmin. You can see that no matter how she turns her face, the light is soft and even all around. If you had seen her in person it would have looked like she was dark in the shade, but once you isolate the subject and expose for the ambient light on her face, the whole scene takes on a different look.

This shot of Precilla on the balcony is more of an environmental portrait. We see a lot of the surroundings and it certainly is not as tight as the shot above of Jazmin. I converted it to B&W because of the subtle tones. And I like B&W. You can tell by the angle of the light on her shoulders that the sun is still quite high. This poured a lot of light across the white floor in front of her as well as the wall behind me. As usual with natural light shots, I exposed for the face (ambient) light, letting the highlight be whatever it is… even if it is blown out.

The next shot of Jazmin is a fashion shot. I simply kept the sunlight to her back and let the natural light of the surroundings set the exposure. The sun was down a bit from the previous shot, so it is a little less on her shoulders than it was on Precilla. Again, the exposure is taken at her face in the ambient light instead of the direct sunlight. Then the shot is exposed for the ambient, letting the backlight go bright.

In none of these shots did we use a reflector or any kind of light modification. I simply used the natural, ambient and direct light to make the image. While it is certainly fun to work with all kinds of lighting equipment, it is also equally fun to use just your wits and the light that is existing at the scene.

Thanks for visiting Lighting Essentials. We will be updating weekly with new and interesting lighting tutorials.

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There is something beautiful about sunlight. It has a feeling that is so warm and natural and it can make people seem to almost glow. I love it so when I saw it happening in a studio in Detroit, I knew I wanted to take advantage of it.

Briana had been posing for some backlit shots with strobe and when she turned to go to the window I saw her pass through this little stream of light. The light was broken up by the window frame and seemed to have a little secondary glow on the dress below. This light-dark-light gave the image some depth.

Here is the first image I shot from a small ladder. I wanted the downward look to the image to allow a feeling of a fleeting moment. The image in my mind should look like she was rushing by and the viewer caught the view for only an instant.

I had her lean forward just a little bit to add some direction to the shot and then worked her face in the light watching for too much shadow / hard edges. Keeping her turned toward the sun mitigates a lot of that hard shadow look. You can see that I made sure there was a little bit of light behind her so that there would be separation and definition of her hair against the background.

The image above received a little desaturation and some skin smoothing.

Here is a second image from the same position. I added some significant Photoshop texturizing and a little sepia mixed in. Notice the angle of the face into the light to mitigate heavy shadows.

The last shot is a close up and I brought myself down a little to get more in line with the light. By keeping her face and light closer to the axis of the camera, I was able to achieve what seems like a soft light with a very direct hard sun.

Try doing some late day, direct light headshots. It must be near sunset though, as making your model stare into direct sun can be very hard on her eyes and un-necessary. Keep the light on axis as much as possible. That means placing yourself between the sun and the model so the light is coming from the direction of the camera. If you want to add a little more drama, move to the side but keep your model’s face turned toward the sun.

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