Any time you can find low-hanging backlit tree leaves you've got it made. I love placing subjects inside those backlit leaves, shooting out to the brighter light. This seemed to be a good place to demonstrate that with the bride and groom who were posing for our class.

I located my camera position very carefully, placing their profiles against a simple background. I exposed for the ambient light within the shaded area, adding a flash to my extreme left at the same f/stop as my exposure. This opened up all the detail in their faces and gave shape to the train of her gown. The backlighting of her veil was the natural sunlight filtering through.

Finally, to finish off the image I burned in the foreground and both corners in Photoshop by adding a duplicate layer. I darkened the entire image by bringing down the lighter side in Curves and erasing the center section of the darkened area 100 percent, continuing out to the sides in lesser increments of erasing.

As the sun lowers in the sky it's possible to use it as the main light without having your subjects squint their eyes. That's what I did here, placing her close to the camera and showing part of Whitewater Lake behind her. With her figure so large in the picture she still dominates the scene, even though the background is so pretty.

Since there was the same amount of light on her as there was on the background, it was a no-brainer. No extra lighting was necessary...well, almost no extra lighting. I did place a light behind her to backlight her veil. It was set to match the f/stop.

In Photoshop I opened up the contrast on some of the darker areas behind her.

As long as there's light you can keep taking pictures. That's what I've found out now that I'm shooting digital. With a simple dial on the camera it's possible to push the "film" up to ISO 800, 1000, or better. My results have been spectacular--even in prints up to 16x20!

This portrait was taken so late in the day everyone had just about put their cameras away. We were even within a group of trees when I spotted the light coming around onto this photographer's face. There was also a rather large opening in the trees in front of him for a fill light.

All I needed to do was to pick up a little of the very late, direct light coming around on the right side of his face and wrap it around onto the left side of his face with my reflector. The reflector, then, became my main light onto his face. Once again, I toned down the edges of the photograph in Photoshop. The rest was as-is.

On the last day of the class our hostess, Michele Gauger, was preparing for a hunting trip. She came out all dressed for action and that's exactly what we did. We went into action, taking her out into her back yard. The light was extremely low both in its angle and in quantity. That didn't bother me. As long as I could place her among the trees with open sky behind her to light her face, I knew we'd have it made.

Seeing the light is all it takes. Once you begin to see it and realize from where it's coming, it's an easy thing to position your subject to the light. Just the reverse of what you do in a studio environment, where you position the light to suit the subject.

Of course there was some darkening in Photoshop of the areas surrounding her face, but isn't that what we used to do in the darkroom, anyhow? It's just a lot easier doing it now on our computers.

Very late in the day we went back to the same bridge where we had posed the bride and groom much earlier and in full sunlight. This time we placed the setting sun directly behind the bride for backlighting. I exposed for a semi-silhouette, getting just a little detail in the faces and in her gown.

When you set something like this up against a clear sky it's so easy to "select" the sky with "Select/Color Range." Then, when I got home I looked at some of my clouds-in-storage and picked what I thought might make this look like a romance novel cover.

The final touch was to pick up some color from the background and overlay it on top of the entire image. This color-keyed the entire picture to the color and mood of the sky behind them.

Is it fair to use Photoshop for all the touchups? Hey, don't you think Ansel Adams would have done the same thing had it been available in his era? Don't you ever wonder what all of his incredible images might have looked like before he did his magical work to them? No different here. With what we have and what we know you can see how wonderful it is to shoot all day long...from sunup to sundown. There's never a reason to wait until the end of the day to do portraiture.

All of these photographs were made with my Canon D60. Yes, I'm 100 percent digital and have been for ages! My translucent panel is by Westcott. Flash and flash transmitter are from Quantum. Titanium tripod by Sunpak. "Filters, vignetters, and special effects" by Photoshop.

You can see much more of all of these techniques on my web site: www.zuga.net.