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Outdoor lighting for portrait photographers - part 2 of 1 2 3

by Stuart Wood Published 01/10/2014

As this was (hopefully!) to be selected as the main series image, I wanted to achieve an iconic picture and a lower viewpoint was selected, so that subconsciously we are 'looking up' to the character. Having spent countless hours in the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery studying the paintings and how the kings and queens were always painted from a lower position, I have successfully adopted this technique many times in my photography.

If you want to make your subject more approachable to the viewer, shoot them from above eye level.

For a more unapproachable look that can elevate the subject, shoot from below it.

I also placed the light to the left, so that the edge that Brenda had lit (left-side) was placed against a very dark part of the background and the edge of Brenda that was in shadow (right side) was placed against the lighter river behind her. This is SO important when using this style of lighting and all too often I see images where the subject merges unflatteringly into a muddy background. Done properly, the subject can appear to be almost 'cut out' against their backdrop.

As in a studio shoot, I always treat the subject and background as separate and, for me, it is this approach that helps me achieve the almost 3D effect that I am after, where my main subject is always brought forward and separated from whatever is selected to surround them.

The light was my trusty Elinchrom Ranger with my small softbox attachment on a stand (I managed to borrow a sandbag from the crew due to the damned thing blowing over just before I got my couple of minutes with Brenda ...told you it was windswept!) and was positioned slightly above Brenda's eye line and then brought closer to achieve fall-off of the light at the bottom of the long coat, achieving an almost spotlight effect.

This is where understanding light does pay dividends and our old adversary 'the inverse square law' that so often works against us, can become a welcome friend by adding fine brush strokes to our images.

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1st Published 01/10/2014
last update 09/12/2022 14:57:04

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