Skills of shooting portraits with sunlight

For beginners or beginners in photography, when shooting portraits outdoors, they rarely bring many equipment and accessories, such as reflectors, shadow lights, etc ... Then the main light source will be the sun in the sky! But taking portraits in the sun also requires considerable skill. This article is to share how to make good use of sunshine to take good-looking portrait photos. Let's start!

Pay attention to the light on your face.

Many novice students always pay attention to the model and background when shooting outdoor portraits, but ignore the important light on their faces. If they shoot at noon or in a sunny environment, it will form a big problem!

Learn to take backlight photos at any time.

One of the most useful techniques is to use sunlight to take backlight photos. Note that different sunlight intensities will also produce different backlight effects. You can take photos with backlight at any time during the day. And because the model won't look directly at the sun when it is backlit, it can avoid squinting, and the effect is more beautiful when the sun is warmer (such as dusk)!

Try different angles.

When shooting, especially under backlight, you can try shooting from different angles. The position of sunlight behind the model is different, and the shooting effect will be very different! For example, in the photo below, the sun is on the left behind. If you shoot a little farther, the lens will produce light, or increase the exposure!

Pay attention to the color of your clothes.

Yes, it's your own clothes! It may sound strange. Why does the photographer's clothes have something to do with the photos? In fact, because in the strong sunlight, if you wear colorful clothes, it is possible to reflect the color of clothes on the model's face and form strange lights! Remember to pay attention ~!

Try to block out the sun with the model's body.

When shooting, you can also use the model's body to block the sun and let the light pass through the edge of your hair. If you match it with white balance (adjust the cold and white balance to make the photo warm) or shoot at sunset, it will make your hair shiny and beautiful.

Learn to take portrait photos with direct sunlight.

Backlight has always been used for frontal shooting. In fact, direct sunlight can also take good portrait photos. One of the reasons is that you can also bring the background and model into the photo (it is inevitable to give up the background when using backlight technology). If there are blue sky and white clouds as the background, the photos will add a lot of points!

Be careful that the model squints when facing the sun.

But you should be careful that the model will squint when pointing directly. The solution is to make the model not look directly at the sun, but look in other directions; Or let the model look at the camera before pressing the shutter!

Learn to use the difference of light to darken the background.

We often avoid the difference of light when shooting the theme in the landscape (for example, using gradient gray filter), but when shooting portraits, we can arrange the model to stand in the sun, which will darken in the photos without direct sunlight and highlight the people better!

Try to take high-gloss photos with sunlight.

High-profile photos, even the whole photo, are often overexposed. Try it when there is sunshine, and it may have unexpected effects.

Make full use of the soft sunshine.

After seeing the shooting method of backlight and direct sunlight, when the sun is in the clouds, or at sunrise and sunset, the light will become very soft, and then there will be no ugly shadows on the face. As long as you ensure the correct exposure on your face, you can make different pose and expressions of models and take good-looking portrait photos!

Reference/Photo of Melinda Smith