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Figure 1 (Top); Figure 2 (Above).
Photos © Ben Clay, 2000
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Photographing people outdoors
can present a number of challenges, particularly on a bright sunny day.
Because film (or a CCD) from a camera cannot compensate for contrast
as well as the human eye, it is often imperative to modify the light
from the sun to achieve better, more professional looking results. This
lesson will illustrate two basic approaches to shooting portraits outside
with light modification.
In the first example, my
friend Jessica and I went out to a nearby cliff overlooking the ocean
in the early afternoon. Since the sun was coming from the direction
of the water, and I wanted to use the cliffs as a background, I had
Jessica turn slightly away from the sun so that the majority of her
face was in shadow. I took a meter reading to expose the background
properly, set the camera to f/22 at 1/125, and took my first shot (Figure
1).
Notice that everything except
Jessica’s face has good exposure. I placed the meter (directed
toward the camera) on the shadow side of her face, and got a reading
of f/11 at 1/125. If I opened up two stops to match the reading, then
the background would be too bright and lose tonal density and color
saturation. Since I wanted to maintain this exposure level, I decided
to bounce light from the sun on her face, thus reducing the contrast.
As there was a bit of a breeze
blowing, I set up a heavy-duty light stand to the left of Jessica and
secured a sandbag to it for stability. Next, I clipped a soft gold reflective
light disc on a light disc holder and affixed it to the stand. I positioned
the disc so that the reflection was present, but not overpowering. I
have found that it is usually best to use reflectors subtly, as it is
easy to go overboard and create artificial looking images (Figure 2).
