How to use light in portrait photos

Lead: How to use up the light when taking portraits? Let's learn from it!

How to run out of portrait photos? How to use light to compose a picture?

The use of light is one of the most effective means to influence the composition of photos, and it is also true for portrait photos. Nothing can make a face so delicate, diverse and changeable than different lighting conditions. As far as the use of light is concerned, you can control the brightness (in the form of bright light and shadow), adjust the direction of light, decide whether to use soft light or hard light, and choose the color of light.

When using light purposefully, you should remember the following basic principles: where the subject is, the light points. At first glance, this sentence seems trite and boring, but after further exploration, we will find that it is an extremely accurate and effective fundamental standard to measure whether the light guidance conforms to the subject-or whether the light guidance is successful. In order to guide the light accurately and properly, you must distinguish exactly what your subject is. Many times, you have to show a person's personality, facial expression, beautiful behavior or inner feelings through photos. The theme of all these touching photos is mainly reflected in the model's face. Specifically, people's personality and emotions are expressed in the eyes, nose and mouth. Therefore, under these themes, light should completely cover these parts, making them brighter and more conspicuous than other areas of the photo.

Of course, according to different photo themes and concepts, the subject may be completely different from other subjects. What you want to highlight may be the hairstyle of the model, or a piece of jewelry, or the outline of the head. This requires you to adjust the light distribution accordingly to show the appropriate light guiding effect.

In fact, many portrait photos not only have a single theme, but also present several objects in a photo at the same time, although their weights are different. However, there will always be some areas or elements, which are not so important by comparison and do not need to appear in the photos in a dazzling way. The requirements for assigning lights and shadows to these areas are similar to those described earlier. Accordingly, the photographer should accurately understand the importance of each specific part of the subject to express the theme of the photo, which is of great significance to the correct use of light guide.

The trade-off between light and shadow

For untrained eyes, is it appropriate to distinguish the light and shadow distribution on the model's face, and does it need to be improved? Simple? There is no relationship between these two words. The first reason is that human perception is completely different from the way cameras work. Because the iris in the eye tissue has very fast self-adjustment and adaptability, our eyes are extremely flexible. In real life, we can clearly see the expressions and details on each other's faces in both bright and dark areas. These scenes we see will be combined into a complete image in the brain. The original shadow part of this image will be highlighted and the occluded part will be completed. On the other hand, each photo of the camera can only be exposed once, resulting in the photo completely retaining the effect of the difference between light and dark in reality.

If you want to judge what kind of light and shade a photo will show by looking at the viewfinder, then you must pay attention to every sign of shadow very consciously. In real life, shadows that can only be found with wide eyes will be clearly displayed in photos, which will interfere with the photo effect. And those shadows that can be seen clearly with the eyes will further darken in the photos, and often even become areas where nothing can be seen. This kind of invisibility may also occur in bright areas of the skin, especially when the skin glows because of sweating and wetting, and the light just hits this sweaty area-the details there will be lost under extremely strong and dazzling reflection.

So you should pay full attention to the subtle light and shadow distribution in photos when shooting. When taking each photo, seriously consider whether those bright areas can really highlight the meaningful details that play an important role in the photo theme, and whether those shadow areas really will not interfere with the overall performance of the photo.

natural light

Some photographers will consider choosing natural light or artificial light when shooting. In fact, there is basically no big difference between these two kinds of light. Because, as a photographer, you will always exert more or less artificial influence on the light for the sake of photo composition. However, under the condition of natural sunshine, the possibility of such artificial influence will be relatively limited. Of course, you can hope to have a suitable weather, such as overcast clouds, and take a portrait photo on this day. On a cloudless sunny day in Wan Li, you can also go into the shadows or shoot indoors, when the light will be reflected from all possible directions in a softer way. In addition, you can guide the model to pose a suitable standing posture, with the appropriate body and head posture, so that the sun shines on the model's face from an ideal angle. All these depend on fine-tuning, which is not an easy task. It is as difficult for photographers as screening chaff from a pile of wheat.

Of course, you can also use a reflector to illuminate the darker areas of the model's face. At the same time, it is very important that you can't let the model look directly at the sun or other light sources, because this will inevitably make him feel dazzling and squint, and the whole facial expression will become ugly. In order to avoid this situation, at the same time, to avoid the direct glare casting a very disturbing shadow on the model's face, the model can stand with his back to the light source. In this way, the above problems can be solved quite easily. The model will look relaxed, the facial expression will be more expressive, and the shadow cast will no longer interfere with the photo.

If you want to shoot the model outdoors and completely control the natural lighting conditions, then you must use the outdoor flash method. You can use a mobile but expensive flash, or use several flash lights that can be plugged into the camera as a more economical alternative. Both types of flashlights have special plastic light devices that can help you control the light at will (you need an adapter if necessary).

When flashing outdoors, unless you install a suitable color filter in front of the flash according to the sunlight temperature, there will always be different light colors (mixed light state) on the photos taken. The reason is that sunlight is always colored, but the light produced by a flash is pure white. The combination of the two will make the model's skin produce unpredictable and extremely disturbing color effects. The lighting atmosphere obtained in this way looks artificial, but it is very suitable for beauty photos or portrait photos.

If a single small flash is used and the power of the flash is adjusted very low, the mixed light state mentioned above may not be so obvious. At the same time, it can magically create bright spots in the eyes of models.