Christian Photographers Community

I registered here yesterday,and I want to introduce myself by showing all of you some of my work.  This first portrait was shot completely by day light, no artificial anything added.  Since I shoot portraits for a living, you will see lots of portraits from me! This is Shannon, one of my favorite subjects! 

Ben

Ohhh, Ben, that's a wonderful example.  She's a beautiful model too.  Was this natural outdoor lighting?



(I changed the URL from thumbnail to the intermediate sized one so we could see it better...Hope you don't mind.)

Pat,

Yes this was completely all natural lighting.  I use Kodak Portra 400 NC, but I set my meter at E.I 320 so the image will have just a little more "punch."  Slightly overexposed negatives will print much better than normal or underexposed negatives.  Good lighting outdoors will usually be found about 10 to 12 feet back from the outer edge of a wooded area.  Further in and the lighting gets flat, further out and you may get "raccoon eyes" caused by the overhead light.  You want the light to come in from the side, not from above.

Shannon's dad is a pastor.  She is one of my favorite people to photograph.  This image was done during a portrait lighting seminar that I taught last month.  (Thanks for enlarging this image it looks so much better larger.)

Ben

I can see that we're all going to learn a lot from you, Ben.

Thanks so much for sharing.

And here you talk about metering again.  I also use alot of natural lighting.  I would love to see more of your work outdoors.  I have taken a few myself but none of them come out as nice as this shot. 

Sonya,

Lots of people think that because there is lots of light outside then it should be easy to take good outdoor portraits.  Actually, one must be able to see the light before one can create beautiful images. As far as metering, do you shoot slide film, print film or digital.  After I know that, we can discuss proper metering for great photos.

Ben

digital

My photos always tend to be a bit bright in areas, almost washed out even when I use the white balance settings.

Don't be so modest Soni, just check out her ribbon winners and portfolio at dpchallenge.com 
http://www.dpchallenge.com/profile.php?USER_ID=714

Love your work girl.

Thanks Skief!  You're just to sweet. 

I do have a hard time with outdoor portraits.  I think I need a metering unit thingy first, right?

Sonja,

When shooting digital images you MUST expose for the brightest area you want detail in.  In my example shot, had this been a digital camera I would have metered the left side of Shannon's face, which is the brightest side.  (I would also have metered the shadow side and made certain there was no more than one stop difference between the two) then I would set the camera at the highlight reading.  For example, I metered Shannon's left cheek, and noted the reading (it was F 8 @ 1/60) then I metered Shannon's right cheek (it was F 5.6 @ 1/60) which means there was one stop difference between the two, and digital can record detail in both, so I could have recorded this image digitally without any problem.  ALWAYS expose for the brightest area of the subject since digital cannot handle any overexposure.  Overexposed images look very bright without detail in the brightest areas.  Learn to read your histogram.  It will tell you whether you are overexposed or not.  The white balance is NOT the histogram.  When you set the white balance, you are telling the camera what is "white" with the particular light source you are using.  Different light sources, although they all look white, are not actually white.  True "white" (photographically) is 5500 degrees Kelvin.  Sunlight is 5500 degrees Kelvin at noon.  Daylight is variable (5600 to 20,000 degrees K.  Tungsten light  bulbs are usually around 2600 to 3200 degrees K.  I use a hand held incident meter which reads the light falling on the subject, not what is bouncing off the subject.  We are not interested in the light that is bouncing off of the subject, we are interested in the light that is falling on the subject.  Anyone who has ever driven in the bright sunlight knows that when there is snow on the ground, it is more difficult to drive than when there is grass on the ground, even though there is EXACTLY the same amount of light in both situations.  The only difference is the snow is reflecting the light, whereas the grass is not (or at least not as much.)


Ben

Ok...I get it now.  I am going to try this today.  I'll let you know how it went.