Lighting How To

Shooting outdoor portraits in natural light seems easy, right, especially on a sunny day. Well, it may be easy to shoot them, but you won’t, necessarily, get flattering shots if you don’t know how to use the sun to your advantage.

If you’re interested in portrait photography, you’ve likely had to decide whether to shoot your subject with natural window light or artificial light from a flash or strobe. Most photographers will admit that neither is “better” than the other; they’re just different and suited for different subjects, different situations, and different tastes.

If you think studio lighting is too difficult or challenging, you’re wrong. In the quick and easy lighting how-to video below from photographer Brett Seeley, he shows you how you can do 13 eye-catching lighting setups with just one light.

In the below outdoor portrait photography from Ed Gregory of Photos in Color, he explains how to balance flash with low ambient light to create professional-looking outdoor portraits that pop. In the video, Gregory walks you through how these portrait lighting techniques work to help you improve your outdoor portraits.

Watch this helpful simple lighting tip from photographer Michael Sasser in two steps. It deals with how to shoot portraits in natural light, which makes it perfect for just about any photographer, whether you’re shooting photos of friends and family on vacation, or capturing models in a professional fashion shoot outdoors in sunlight.

There’s an easy way to make your beauty shots even more stunning: just add some colored gels to your lighting. Editorial fashion photographer Jake Hicks shows how in the below video where he shoots a portrait session at home and gets a variety of attractive looks.

Photography gear is great, but photography gear can be expensive and it’s always so much more fun and cheap when you can make it yourself. In the below video from COOPH, they teach you how to do just that.