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Outdoor portrait
photography tips
✦ Shoot early in the morning or
late in the afternoon. The sunlight
when the sun is rising or setting
can give your subjects a pleasing
warm tone. When the sun is high in
the sky during the mid-afternoon
hours, the light is often harsh and
can cause severe shadows.
✦ Use a wide aperture. Using a
wide aperture creates a pleasing
out of focus background. This
effect is known as bokeh, pro-
nounced bo-keh. This comes from
the Japanese word “boke” which
means fuzziness or dizziness.
152 Part II ✦ Creating Great Photos with the Creative Lighting System
Table 6.10
Taking Outdoor Portrait Pictures
Setup Practice Picture: Figure 6.31 was taken during a trip to the lake.
The sun was going down, creating a beautiful color of light.
On Your Own: When the sun is setting, the sky reflects the warm
color on to your subject. This time is often the best to take
portraits outdoors.
Lighting Practice Picture: I used the built-in Speedlight to add some fill —
because the sun was almost behind my model, she was a little
backlit.
On Your Own: Use the fill flash setting whenever your subject is
backlit or if the angle of the sun is creating harsh shadows.
Lens Practice Picture: Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6 set at 110mm
On Your Own: Use a long telephoto lens to flatten your models
features. The further you are away from the model the less the
apparent distance from their features is. Apparent distance is the
distance objects look from each other from a certain perspective.
Using a wide-angle lens at close range can cause the nose to
look big while also causing the ears to look too small.
Camera Settings Practice Picture: Aperture Priority setting, matrix metering. I
chose the AP setting in order to choose a wide aperture to throw
the background out of focus. The light meter was set to matrix in
order to use the Speedlight in the TTL BL mode.
On Your Own: Use Aperture Priority to be able to set your
aperture to control your depth of field.
Exposure Practice Picture: 1/160 sec. at f/5.6, ISO 200
On Your Own: Be sure you set your aperture so that you subject’s
entire face is in focus, but the background is out of focus so that
the background isn’t competing with your model for attention.
Accessories A reflector of some sort can be used to fill in any deep shadows
on your subject.
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