How do novices take good backlit portrait photos?

Backlight photography means that the capture light source is located behind the subject and is easy to see in portraits. So how do novice photographers take portrait photos with backlight, and what new skills can they take good-looking portrait photos?

1. Use shadows to fade the glare effect.

If you can't choose to shoot in strong light or very bright light, the solution is to find a hood to filter out some light, so that the amount of reflected light is reduced, but it is recommended to choose a horizontal layout without strong reflection, depending on the person you like.

2. Change the shooting position and choose the appropriate light direction.

Another simple way to shoot backlight is to try to change the position where we take pictures. Let's try to adjust the perspective around us, so that we can know which angle to choose to take a better backlit photo. To choose the right light direction, try to choose from the photos taken by backlight first. It is enough to know what angle you can take. The correct light direction may not always have light behind the subject.

3. Illuminate the main body with a separate flash or reflector.

Many times when we shoot the backlight under strong light, the subject will be darker than the background. Therefore, we will use a flash. When we observe a wedding or graduation photo filmed outdoors, we often see the use of flash. Because the backlight background is very strong, we need the lighting conditions behind. If there is no front fill flash, it will definitely be dark, and adding flash will help solve this problem.

We can also use the front fill flash to allow more detailed backlight shooting of the subject. By adding the flash, we can also adjust the direction of the flash, which enables us to control the light shining on the subject in various ways as needed. Therefore, if someone wants to take beautiful photos of women, they can use backlight photography.

In addition, we can also gently reflect the light to the subject through devices such as mirrors, or reflect the reflected light to the subject by using white objects reflected to the subject.

4. Familiar with the camera's metering system

Spot metering allows the camera to measure the exposure of specific points in the image, mainly the subject's face. Spot metering is very helpful when we want to shoot against the light and ensure that the camera gets the correct exposure to the subject's face.

5. Correct use of white balance in backlight photography.

White balance is one of the camera settings that most of us will ignore, because the automatic white balance system in this era is quite good, but we know how to adjust the white balance of each value. What effect does it have on color temperature?

Let's deal with the backlight better. We can use white balance in color design, and each tone of the picture gives people a different mood.

Practicing backlight photography can change the different ways we look at natural light. Although the training was very hard at first, I believe that in the end, we will definitely feel how to correctly handle the backlight and get the beautiful photos we want.