Why are novices advised to take portraits in natural light?

Beginners of portrait photography may start shooting from the portraits around them, but many professional photographers will recommend novice photographers to try to shoot portraits under different conditions during the practice of portrait photography, which is not very well understood. Even if they practice taking portraits in natural light as suggested, they still have little knowledge of this advice. Here are five reasons why novice photographers are advised to practice using natural light in portrait photography.

1. Natural light helps us to understand light, because light is an important variable in photography.

The important factor of photography is light, both in quantity and quality. At the same time, light will also affect the picture, such as light intensity, light temperature, light direction, shadow and so on. The light duration is different at different times, and different photos will be produced in different seasons. Therefore, we should start shooting from natural light, learn to understand light in practice, and get ready for taking good photos.

2. Natural light makes the color of the subject close to that seen by the eyes, and the overall composition of the picture looks natural.

The colors seen in nature are caused by the reflection of the sun's rays in our surroundings. When shooting in natural light, we need an edible camera to directly record the color of the photo instead of our eyes. Shooting in natural light produces colors similar to those seen by our eyes, including skin color, light and shadow, and colors of surrounding elements.

Natural light is easy to find.

Natural light is a very high-quality light source, so don't deliberately build it with external lighting equipment. Therefore, for people who want to start photography without investing a lot of equipment, they should start with natural light photography, practice proficiency first, and then gradually expand to synthetic light photography to reserve experience. After all, they can't eat a fat man in one bite.

4. Natural light is a beautiful light source, which can give people different visual experiences and feelings just by changing different time intervals.

Portrait photography needs to convey emotions. Besides body language, the color and light in the picture are conducive to the emotional communication of the subject. Prime time gives people a warm and soft feeling because of the golden light of the sun, but if it is sunny during the day, it will give people a bright and energetic feeling.

5. Natural light makes light and shadow look natural and beautiful.

The shadow formed by natural light looks very harmonious and natural, because the shadow will have different effects of size and intensity due to the different time of using light (such as morning or evening), so the shadow will be very long and the shadow edge will not be very sharp. But if it is noon or sunny, the shadow will be dark black. If you take pictures at that time, you can see that shadows will be on the edge of your eyes, under your chin and under your nose. Therefore, whenever portrait photography is carried out, natural light will produce unique shadows.

The use of natural light will make us know more about portrait photography, especially the intensity of natural light, and make our photos look more beautiful.