Lighting How To

These days, everyone likes throwbacks. Whether it's retro-style cameras, vintage lenses, or even analog photography and film, classic things, by their very nature, never go out of style.

David X. Tejada’s assignment was a lighting demo for a how-to video and end-use images. The location was a private home where he was asked to create the effect of artificial sunlight. The weather cooperated by providing rain.

When most of us got started in photography we were told to “always shoot with the sun at your back.” That advice was reasonable for beginners interested in capturing simple images with a “Kodak Moment” look.

We've all come upon a beautiful scene only to discover that our images look flat and lifeless. Sometimes that's because the light wasn't quite right, while other times the culprit was operator failure, i.e. we used the wrong camera settings or techniques.

There are a number of reasons that landscape and other outdoor photos may be underexposed. Perhaps you neglected to add the necessary EV compensation, or an overly bright sky biased the exposure.

If you’ve ever shot portraits in front of a seamless white background or a cyclorama, you’ve probably had to deal with pesky background shadows. They’re fine if you’re going for a dramatic look in your portraits, but what if you wanted something cleaner as your background to draw attention to your subject?

Beginner portrait photographers should check out the below tutorial from Bach Photography.  Titled "How to Instantly Improve Your Natural Light Portrait Photography," it's a great starting point for anyone wanting to shoot beautiful portraits using only natural light.