P#16 Q7A: What Are Some Things Our Listeners Can Do to Improve Their Natural Light Portraits?

Seeing the Light

Bobbi Lane: I think it's important for people to gain the awareness of the light. The easiest way for them to learn this is to try doing portraits using just the window light.

I would suggest using a regular sized window, like a two foot by three foot window. Position the person so that they are maybe two to three feet away from the window and parallel to the window so that their nose is pointing directly at you and the window is completely at your side.

If you started off doing that, then you would have a split light on the person. Then try turning their face towards the light. You can move the camera around. You don't need to keep the camera in the same place.

Move the camera around, move the person around so that you can see the different lighting patterns, you can see how that changes. That would be the first part of the exercise, to see how that direction of light defines and describes the form of a person's face.

The second part would be put the person in one place. Get the lighting set up and maybe do a Rembrandt light. Then take a white card or a reflector and move it at different distances. Just keep moving it closer in until it's very close to the face. See how much light bounces back.

Come back and compare those images and you can see how the mood changes by how dark the shadows are. Those two things can really help people gain a much better awareness of natural lighting and how it works. Then they can be more aware when they go outside into broader lighting situations and then start to see how they can put those to work for them.

In Conclusion

The best way to improve your natural light portraits is to understand natural light and to know how to use it. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. And Bobbie Lane agrees that the best way to improve your natural light portraits is to practice and experiment.