Photography Tricks

I mentioned in my last post that I would give some photography secrets away, so I am keeping my word.

If there is anything that I can't stand from a photographer's standpoint is sun.  I know that every bride wants a beautiful sunny day for their wedding, but honestly, I would MUCH rather a beautiful CLOUDY day.  It's a bear of a time dealing with squinting, shadows, and shiny foreheads.  You get photographs like this.

The sun on her forehead is very distracting, and makes the picture look not so professional.  It's not something that is a quick fix in Photoshop either, so most likely, this picture won't make the cut.    But while I was taking a class about lighting, I learned a really easy, super effective way of shooting in bright sun.

Stand in the apex.

In other words, face the subject so the sun is to their back, and find their shadow on the ground.  Once you do that, stand right where the shadow ends.  That's the apex.  So as I took this picture of her, I stood right at very end of her shadow, set the correct exposure for her face, and snapped away.

ISO 400, f/3.5 at 1/1000sec cuz boy was it bright.  I probably could have put my ISO even lower, but ah well.

But how much better is that!?  Her has no funny under eye shadows, it has nice even light spilled on her face, and tho the sky is blown out, it makes for a nice picture.  And all by standing at the apex.  Now the only time I can think of where this trick wouldn't work is for large groups.  But for portraits, senior pictures, or in this case head shots, it works great.  

Another trick that I learned was to use your bright sun as your very own, very large reflector.  The best place to get nice even light is the shade.  Prefect.  BUT sometimes your images can look flat and boring.  But by simply moving your subject to the edge of the shadow line, the reflection from the ground that the sun is hitting brings light to your subject.  

Example:

It's a great picture of Lexi, with good exposure and with no bright sun to deal with.  But her face doesn't pop out in this image like I would like it to.  So I found the edge of the buildings shadow line, and stuck her there.

See the difference?  A much better image of this adorable young woman, and in my opinion, one that would do very nicely for a portfolio.  Her face has a great glow to it, and the light is super even with no distractive shadows.  

Ok, one last secret.  To create a portrait that is outside the norm, look for places that you usually wouldn't think to use.  Places with symmetry, or places that create depth and lines.  So as we were walking, I found this old, crooked fence that was casting some really cool lines on the pavement.  I decided to get a little creative so I asked Lexi to sit right by the fence.  Her jacket already had stripes on it, so adding more made a very neat picture that I fell in love with.

Yes, I went against all my other rules of having shadows on her face, but the result is awesome and unexpected.  It's all about looking at your surroundings and seeing beyond the obvious shot.  

I hope all you readers who love photography, or those of you who are photographers yourself learned something!  This is an ever-changing craft, which forces us to always be learning.  So practice, practice, practice!.