Outdoor Portraiture (Update)

Outdoor Portraiture (Update)

by William Lulow

Note: This article was orginally published in August of last year. I have added a few things to it.

In these days of the global pandemic, being able to do things outdoors, where there is enough fresh air circulation to make talking (with your mask in place) and doing other things fairly safely, it can become vitally important for photographers to be able to work outside. So I thought I would go over how I set up my outdoor portrait sessions.

The first thing I look for is the light. I prefer to have the sun behind my subjects so that I can make it act like a highlight rather than the main light. If the sun is behind the camera position, it forces the subjects to squint and they don’t look natural. Also, the sun as a mainlight is way too specular causing deep shadows and uneven lighting. The reason for this is that it is so far away that it acts as a “point light source” and is not very flattering under most circumstances.  So the first thing is to position the subjects with their backs to the sun.

This dictates a couple more “rules” for outdoor portraits in general: when your subjects have their backs to the sun, their faces are therefore in shadow. This necessitates some kind of “fill-in” light so that those shadows become transparent and you will be able to see detail.

Then, the light I use at the camera position needs to have several characteristics:

1. It has to be large enough to create a pleasing effect on people’s faces
2. It has to be strong enough to fill in the shadows but not overpower the general ambient light (otherwise you get a very unnatural kind of “flashy” look
3. It should be portable enough so that you can change it’s position easily.

I can do this with a studio light with an umbrella set up outdoors, but usually it is easier with a portable flash that you can attach to your camera or, simply use the pop-up flash that is part of most digital cameras today. The only real problem with the built-in flash is that it is very small compared to human subjects, but for fill-in purposes, it sometimes does quite nicely. The other thing I use is a portable bounce card that is made for Canon (and other) portable flash units. It attaches directly to the camera’s hot shoe. Here’s what it looks like:

The next thing on my check list is the background. I always look for some kind of pleasing background. Maybe it’s just green trees or leaves or grass. Or, better still, some plain background that is non specific. It can be the side of a building or even just woods or something that I can make nondescript by keeping it out of focus.

Then, I try to find some place to put my camera that will be in shade while my subjects are in the sun (with their backs to it). If I can’t find a suitable piece of shade, I will need someone to hold an umbrella over my camera and lens to create some shade.

Once I have the right light and a suitable spot to place my subjects, I can then concentrate on lenses and settings to use. If you have just one person to shoot, it becomes a simple matter of using a long enough lens (telephoto) so that the background will be out of focus but the person will be sharp. Here’s one example:

This was shot on my deck behind my old studio in Westchester. Notice how the background is mostly out of focus, the sun is shining on the subject’s hair and she looks totally natural. Her face was filled by a portable flash unit mounted on a light stand placed in front of her.

Here’s a shot where the fill in light was just the flash built-in to the camera:

Here you can see the effect of the late afternoon, early evening sun on the right side of the subjects. Sometimes you can’t have the sun directly behind your subjects, but you can always find a place to put the camera where it will add a highlight somewhere.

Here’s another example:

So here is a family of eleven people. I found a place in their back yard where I could arrange them with a pleasing, flower background, have room for all of them and also find a piece of shade where I could put my camera. Note the highlights on all the heads. I had to shoot this with a wider angle lens than I would have preferred because I couldn’t back up enough to shoot them with even a medium telephoto like a 60mm or 85mm lens.

Now larger groups often present a logistical problem. With one person, you can usually put enough distance between the camera and subject to allow for a longer lens. When you are doing a large family, however, that is not always possible.  So, you have to remember that when you use a wide-angle lens, it automatically adds to the depth-of-field and brings the backgrounds into sharper focus. Therefore, you need to find a really nondescript background to use. As an aside, the larger the group you need to shoot, the more you have to try to pay attention to everyone’s expressions. Here, they all look pretty good.

Here are some more examples:

This image was made when the temperature was only about 16 degrees Farenheit! But with a fill-in flash on the camera, it worked well.

This was my set up for these two shots (two accent lights and one on the camera):

Each of these shots had the subjects with their backs to the sun and were filled in by a light at the camera position.

Every once in a while you get a cloudy day when you have an outdoor shoot. In this case, I usually carry at least two extra flash units and light stands that can be used to add the requisite highlights. The family shot above was executed with the addition of the two extra portable flash units.