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Use those Christmas lights during the summer to light beautiful portraits

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Chrismas lights are usually in use for maybe six weeks out of the year. The other 44 weeks, they typically reside in a box in the attic or a cupboard under the stairs. It seems a bit of a waste to me. When photographer Joe Edelman‘s wife informed him she was going to a “Christmas in July” sale, it made him think the same thing.

In this video, Joe shows us a bunch of ways to make use of Christmas lights throughout the year. Whether it’s to serve as the main light source for a portrait, or an interesting sparkly background, they have plenty of uses besides just hanging off a tree.

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How to use direct sunlight to your advantage and get some awesome shots

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Most of the photographers avoid direct sunlight when taking outdoor portraits, especially if the Sun is the only light source. However, you can turn the harsh sunlight into your advantage, and use it as a key light. Jay P. Morgan picked up his camera to show us how to do it, and ended up with some interesting shots using only the light coming from the Sun.

Jay and his crew shot in Bombay Beach, CA. The subject is an astronaut in a reflective suit, and I just love the location with the abandoned cars, trailers and houses. Even though the light is a bit flat, there are some tricks to make it more appealing and make the shots more interesting.

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Five great tips to help you master portrait lighting and improve your photography

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Learning different portrait lighting techniques can seem complicated when you’re just starting out. Because of this, photographer Ed Verosky shares some great advice to help you out. In his video, he gives you five of his top portrait lighting tips.They will help you master the techniques gradually, and become much better in setting up the light for portraits.

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Learn how to do three point lighting like a pro

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The basic three point lighting technique is a staple in portraits. It’s a simple and straightforward setup. It consists of a key light, a fill light and a rim light. It’s a technique anybody interested in portraits should learn. And it’s not necessarily because it looks particularly amazing, but it allows you to learn the basic principles of lighting any subject.

In this 7 minute video, Australian photographer PJ Pantelis, walks us through the three point lighting setup. He explains how each light contributes to the shot, showing them all separately, and together in various combinations. The actual lights and modifiers used aren’t important in this exercise. It’s all about learning how each light interacts with our subject’s features and each other.

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Here’s how to take awesome night portraits with off camera flash

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Recently, we published an article on overpowering the sun and shooting portraits in bright sunlight. But this time, we’re going to a completely different extreme. After daylight comes the dark, and Francisco Joel Hernandez will help you take portraits at night using off camera flash. If you’re new to this kind of portraits, you’ll find it really useful, and even the more experienced photographers can use it as a checklist.

Francisco shares advice for getting enough ambient light without ending up with overexposed subjects. He also provides some sample images and BTS shots to get you inspired and illustrate what he’s talking about.

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How dog toys and toilet paper can improve your portrait photography

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Coming up with new and interesting ways to improve your portraits in the studio can sometimes be challenging. You feel like you’re just going through the motions session after session. Photographer, Joe Edelman, recently posted a video about the Light Blaster and how it can help you get more creative in the studio, to project shapes and even entire scenes onto your backdrop or subject.

In Joe’s newest video, he takes things a little more three dimensional. As well as providing tips on how to make and use cardboard or foamcore gobos, Joe also shows how we can use household objects to add unique interest to the background. Dog chew toys, a toddler’s toy wheelbarrow, house plants, and even toilet paper. Nothing is off limits.

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How to shoot portraits on location with outdoor flash

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Using flash on location is one of the best things you can to really push your outdoor portraits. Often, the natural light might give you exactly what you want, but often it does not. The sun might be in slightly the wrong position to give you the background you want. Or a lack of cloud cover might make it not as soft as you’d like. Too much cloud cover could make it too soft. And sometimes, you just want to get creative.

This video from Mark Cleghorn for Elinchrom shows us several ways to utilise flash on location. There’s a lot of information packed into this 4 minute video. It’s a lot like working with flash in the studio, except you have to take the ambient light into account, too. You may want to use it as a gentle fill, or you may want to try to overpower it completely. But without flash, your options are often limited.

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Learn More Lighting Techniques With These Building Blocks Of Creative Portrait Lighting

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Here’s a great video from Jake Hicks that demonstrates how you can use a three light setup to make a creative portrait, much like the photo in the title card of the video, above. In the 11-minute clip, Hicks walks us through the process of how he shot the photo, taking the time to explain the finer details of his lighting setup and how he uses specific lighting techniques to fine tune specific aspects of the photo.  [Read more…]

See How Lighting Position Affects The Mood and Perception of a Scene

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Lighting is hands-down one of the most important elements in visual production and has the power to single-handedly alter the mood and perception of an entire scene.  On a more macro level, lighting position, more so than diffusion or tone, is probably the most vital aspect to control.  Lighting affects our moods, distorts space and time, and alters our perceptions of what we see, which is why optical illusions can be so baffling to the human mind.

While we have previously published a very helpful portrait lighting cheat sheet, visual creator Nacho Guzman gives us a real-time look at the varied impact of light positioning on the human face in a segment of his music video for Opale.

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