A Poor Photographers Guide to Shooting Models Outdoors

Raw is an unmodified compilation of your sensors data during the time of exposure.

Items discussed in article

It is your digital negative. When you shoot in JPG format, everything but what the image processor needs to make a shell representation of the image you intended to capture is stripped away. For every edit you make to a JPG, you lose more data. How can this make you portrait better?

Think about the last time your white balance was set incorrectly, and you tried for hours to remove the color cast only to destroy the image with every attempt. RAW would have saved you by allowing you to fix the color before opening the image for retouching. To avoid confusion, I am going to explain this backwards. When opening Adobe Camera Raw or any other RAW image editing application there is always a way to select a custom white balance.

Usually it is an eyedropper of some kind that you can use to click on what you think is neutral gray in your image. Imagine a world where your photo shoot involved 4 locations and a total of images, and all day the camera was set to Auto White Balance. That is different white balance values, a post production nightmare. If, at each location, you have your subject hold the gray card on the first shot, you will save hours of work. When you open location one images in your favorite post production application, all you have to do is click the eye dropper on the gray card, select all and synchronize the rest.

Precious hours have been saved. If you plan on taking your time, it may be wise to do this once every 30 minutes or so to compensate for the changing light of day. Direct sunlight is harsh, makes your subject squint, and creates hard directional shadows and unpredictable white balance conditions. With proper exposure and white balance, you can make these shots look amazing. Natures softbox is a giant blanket of clouds. A good heavy blanket of cloud cover can help you enrich your colors, and make some very smooth and pleasing shadows.

Always try to control the direction, use some kind of reflector, and try to mimic a studio light. When the sun is at my back, I have the subject look off camera away from the sun and get very nice results. Another great trick is to wait for a cloud to move in front of the sun, this usually creates a very bright yet contrasted look. A yellow tint can change the white balance in your shadows.

13 Tips for Improving Outdoor Portraits

Picture framing outlets and craft stores always have medium to large sized pieces of foam core lying around that have been left for scrap. They are usually more than happy to part with these scraps, and if not, chances are there are pieces by the dumpster. So you have a baseline for proper exposure in your mind to work with if no other tools are present.

If you own either an incident light meter, or gray card use either for the most accurate exposure instead. Leave the expensive thread count sheets on the bed. You already got them? Well go put them back. You know that cheap old sheet you stuck in the corner of a closet to use as a drop cloth the next time you paint? Another option is to buy the cheapest, lowest thread count, white top sheet you can find.

Keep in mind that whatever is closest to the camera will appear largest in an image and that wide-angle lenses will amplify this effect. When shooting a close-up portrait, facial features such as a pronounced nose can be particularly challenging, requiring special attention. The young woman pictured at left has a longer-than-average nose, yet Adler used the photographic tools of posing, lighting, and lens choice to reduce its appearance in the portrait at right.

Smith, a Sony Artisan of Imagery, notes that most Sony mirrorless cameras have a handy feature called Eye AF that allows you to track focus right on the eyes. Focusing on the eyes of your subject, as illustrated in these dynamic headshots by Brian Smith, is the most essential of all portrait tips. Brian Smith is a master of telling a great story through portraits. While he appreciates the precision and acuity offered by traditional 85mm, mm , and mm prime portrait lenses, he generally prefers the focal range offered by a 24—70mm zoom as he works. Dependence on auto white balance in a portrait situation can lead to inconsistent results, which can cost you valuable time in post and be counterproductive to the relationship with your subject.

A couple of basic accessories to remedy such issues should become essential items in your portrait kit. Available in white, silver, gold, black, or translucent surfaces, these lightweight fabric hoops are held outside the frame and directed toward the subject for a soft fill, to neutralize undesirable color casts, or tame unappealing shadows. Environmental factors can negatively influence skin color. The unsightly green skin tone in the left hand portrait was the result of the sun reflecting off the surrounding grass and trees. In such cases, Adler recommends overpowering the existing light by adding a reflector or strobe, as shown at right.

In situations where the available lighting makes it impossible to attain a pleasing white balance, converting to black-and-white is a viable option that also imbues a portrait with a sense of classic refinement. This allows you to view the black-and-white scene in real-time as you shoot. While shooting raw brings with it the challenge of a larger file size and the added complexity of converting files in post, it is especially beneficial when bringing the file to life as a finished portrait.

Raw files are often described as being the same as a photographic negative; after downloading from the camera, adjustments can be made to elements such as contrast, color, tonality, and more, without compromise to the original file. With the JPEG format, on the other hand, the original file is compressed, which results in a loss of valuable image data.

For many types of use, posting to social media for example, this is not an issue and, in fact, the smaller file size offers a huge advantage. But each time you take that original JPEG and resize or otherwise change it, you are effectively losing data. If the raw file is your starting point, you will be working from the best available image capture, which will be preserved intact in the storage device of your choosing. During a recent trip to Haiti, Smith knelt down to the level of this young child for a compelling portrait.

To get a rundown on her most essential gear, watch this Event Space video Lindsay Adler: To learn more about the photographers who contributed to this article, click on their names below. Thanks for your question, Kanon. I hope this explanation helps to clarify things for you, and many thanks for reading the blog!

Happy shooting and thanks for reading the Explora blog! I really enjoyed reading this article. It is taking place in a woodland setting and the white balance comment has reminded me to take a grey card with ma along with a large reflector which I rarely use because I struggle to fold it back up to its tiny size - any tips for this? Thanks so much for writing in Sonia, glad to hear that you enjoyed the article. You might also enjoy reading this article for additional reflector tips:.

Thanks for puttting this together - this has been the most helpful article I've found offering professional insight to those of us who are a little more experienced with camera but need some practical portrait tips. Time to add a reflector to my kit! While these are excellent insights. I always learned portrait photography as a picture that might hang on your wall in your home for years.

While all these photographs are excellent, I think some could be considered "people pictures" as apposed to portraits. That is they would be good for illustration or magazine work but not necessarily a "portrait. This article was so helpful!

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I feel like there aren't many articles out there that address making the subject appear more flattering and feeling comfortable, I definitely needed this. I have one question about the part that says the subject should face the sun. I am young and not very experienced with portrait photography yet, but I've always shot into the sun whenever the sun was out.

Have I been doing this wrong? I usually shoot outside and use just natural light. I'd appreciate any advice! Happy shooting and thanks again for reading Explora! The 50mm and 85mm shot was shot from above and the 20mm from straight on. You made it seem like a mm is always better. You also don't need a reflector if you position your model the right way in ambient light.

If you don't believe me, check out Dani Diamond Photography. He's just using ambient light. I might add that the point I was making is that you deliberately shot the subject from above to make it seem like mm is more flattering. For people who have no clue about photography, it's pretty misleading.

13 Tips for Improving Outdoor Portraits

I can shoot both 50mm and 85mm straight on and it'll look the same except for the background compression. Take another shot with the mm from above so that everyone can see that it'll look just as bad. Hi Chris, thanks for your comments and our apologies if you found the three portraits in this example to be misleading. While she regularly uses 50mm or 85mm lenses for portrait work, under these circumstances she recommends using longer focal length lenses. Hope this helps to clear up any confusion, and thanks for reading the Explora blog.

Hi Yshine, thanks for your question. Happy shooting and thanks very much for reading Explora! I will try some of these Tips! I found here some tips that can help any photographer using any camera for taking better photos: Glad you enjoyed these tips Redouan, and thanks very much for sharing the link to additional photo tips. Happy shooting and many thanks for reading Explora! Hi Vivian, thanks for writing in. Glad you found these tips to be helpful and easy to understand. You can find lots more tips like these on the Explora blog. Thanks for reading and please visit often!

Very good advice for those who are just starting out in this wonderful world of photography. Hi Kathir, thanks so much for writing in. Great to hear that you found this article helpful. There's lots more to explore on the Explora blog, so please check out the other articles in our Learn Photography portal. Hi Young McQueen, thanks so much for your comment. I'll pass this praise along to our copyeditor and the folks who write and maintain our editorial style guide. They work hard at this! Please keep reading and writing in, we love to get mail! Hi Ken Rager, thanks for writing in.

About my mention of "facing the sun" here's a response to another commenter who mentioned this same issue This can definitely be a problematic issue, expecially at midday, as discussed in the paragraph preceding the one you're quoting.

1. The broader the light source, the softer the light.

To further clarify your question, the sentence you refer to might work better as follows: Using a scrim is another good option for avoiding squinty eyes in bright sunlight. Onthat note, here's a link to a more advanced article about lighting gear for outdoor portraits that might be of interest: Glad to hear that you liked this article Marie Anti. Thanks so much for reading and for getting in touch! Thank you for this article as I'm a mid-level photographer newbie looking to grow to professional one day. I have taken over 3, photos from flowers in my garden to wedding pictures just to get a feel for what you've placed in this article.

Thanks for your comment Samuel, glad you found the article to be helpful. Keep up the hard work and please keep in touch via the blog! Good tips for the beginning portrait photographer I'm sure and useful for the rest of us amateur picture takers as well. But in my years of taking photos of family, friends, and sometimes strangers the biggest obstacle has been getting them to stand still and pose. Hi Ross, thanks so much for writing in. I definitely feel your pain with this comment. Getting the cooperation of family and friends, not to mention strangers, can be a tall order and really deserves an article in its own right.

That said, the first tip above, about connecting with your subject and getting them to share in the process, speaks directly to this issue.