Taking portraits outdoors is one of the easiest ways to get a professional-looking, flattering photo everyone will love. Sometimes the pictures just seem to come out wonderfully without any effort, while other times nothing seems to work right. By following just a few basic tips, however, you can ensure your outdoor portraits almost always turn out well.
Focus On The Eyes
Good portraits are all about the eyes. If you can see a person's eyes clearly in a photo, it's almost always considered a quality photo. Unfortunately, many outdoor portraits don't expose the eyes well because the person is squinting in the bright sunlight, or because they have dark shadows around their eyes. Fixing these two common problems is fairly easy with the following two tips.
Avoid Direct Sunlight
Avoid direct, harsh sunlight. When taking outdoor portraits, you want bright light, but you don't want strong direct sunlight. Direct sunlight will create harsh shadows on the person's face, and it usually makes them squint, too.
One way to keep the sun from shining directly in the person's eyes is to turn him so the sun is either at their side or at their back. If the light is still too bright when it's on the side, turn him a slight bit further so the light is coming over one of his shoulders.
With the sunlight behind the person, you'll get a pleasing backlighting or rim lighting effect that looks professional. The back lighting can confuse your camera's exposure meter, though, so you'll need to make adjustments to ensure the person's face doesn't come out too dark in the finished portrait. To compensate for the strong back lighting, take an exposure reading off the person's face or increase your exposure by +1 to +2.
The easiest way to get great outdoor portraits every time is to simply place your subject in a shaded area such as under a large tree.
Fill and Reflect
Use fill lights or reflectors. When you don't have access to a shaded or filtered light area for taking outdoor portraits, you can reduce the harsh shadows and squinting by using simple fill lights or reflectors.
A fill light is an additional light that helps open up the darkness of shadows. A camera flash set to fill flash setting works well as a fill light when taking portraits in direct sunlight, because the flash will light up the shadowed areas.
A reflector is any light colored or shiny reflective item that bounces light into dark areas. A plain piece of white paper works well as a reflector, as does any light colored fabric, cardboard or foam board. Shiny material works well, too: Simple tin foil is excellent in a pinch, as is a simple mirror and anything shiny and metallic.
To light up dark shadows under a person's eyes when taking an outdoor portrait, have him hold a reflector at waist or chest height and angled towards his face. The reflector will bounce sunlight back up into the face and open up the shadows so you'll get a professional-looking final portrait.
Tags: outdoor portraits, person eyes, person face, taking outdoor, works well
