Transcripts
1. Five Ideas For Harsh Light - Introduction: For those of you not
based in the UK, you might be a little
surprised to find, yes, even here, we do get just
a little bit of sunshine. It's the middle of
May and the sun suddenly came out.
Who saw that coming? So we sidestepped what we were really going
to film and went out into the sunshine
to explore some ideas. I'm Paul Wilkinson, an award
winning photographer and host of the Mastering
portrait photography podcast. And in this class, what
we're going to show you is five distinct
ways of creating beautiful portraits
using the very best of the harshest of
sunlight. Enjoy the class. I
2. Five Ideas For Harsh Light - Idea 1: So even on the brightest and sunny of days
here in the UK, the sun is never ever
directly overhead. It'll get close, but it's not going to ever quite get
down. What does that mean? Well, it just means
the sun is always casting shadows at an angle. Today, we're photographing
towards the middle of May. It's about midday.
But you can see that the shadows still have direction and not straight up and down. And that means we can find
spaces where we can work. I know it feels a
little bit for cop out. I've talked about how to take great pictures on a
bright and sunny day, and I'm now saying,
well, step into the shade, but it is a solution. It is a way of getting incredible images even when the sun is making
life tricky for you. And the thing about sunlight is sunlight isn't rubbish.
Sunlight is amazing. It's just the direction
of the light, particularly when it's high in the sky makes it hard
to find those angles. So here's one of the best
solutions that I know of. Is simply to use the edge of the shadows. What
do I mean by that? All you have to do is get
your subject to stand on the other side
of where you see a shadow line on the ground, and you've got a good chance
of getting great light. Here in this particular
bit of our barn, we've got a big wide
opening at the front, and we have a little
doorway at the back. So I've got light
coming back as well. So I've got two directions
of light to play with. The light coming from
the front is huge. And if I bring Libby
forward into the light, you can see the cat's
lights in her eyes. They're absolutely beautiful
because of course, it's being lit her
face is being lit by this huge sky behind us. And as I move her further and further and
further into the barn, what two things happen firstly? The direction of the light
starts to flatten down. Why? Because the opening in the front of the barn is governing where the
light can come from. The other thing that's
happening is Technically, there's less and less
light reaching my subject. And that becomes more and more in tune with
the background. So relatively speaking, the ratios even out and my background is
getting brighter. I open up the exposure
on the camera to allow my subject for
Libby to be well lit. The background also gets lighter. So it depends
what I want to do. If I want Libby really
beautifully lit at the front and I want darkness in the background, I
just bring her forward. If I want Libby to be more
in tune with the background, so telling more of a story about the tools and the gardening
paraphernalia in here, then I just move
everything backwards. I'm shooting on a 8,051.8, which means my backgrounds are usually fairly blurred anyway. But I can create
different atmospheres. By moving it to the sides, so there's only the
background in shot. I can use the light
coming in from the back door as a little
bit of a kiss light, a little bit of a rim light
around the edge of her face. If I put a right slap bang in the middle of the
doorway, of course, I can use that as a secondary
frame within my picture. Either of those
are great, it just depends what you're
trying to do. And of course, it is a shame to be in the shadows
on a bright sunny day. But here's a up point for you. As the photographer, where you can stand in the
sunshine anyway. It's only your subject that
has to stand in the shade. It is
3. Five Ideas For Harsh Light- Idea 1 (Part 2): It is in it is. So what do you do in
your likely event that arrive in an open space, and there's no shade
to be found at all. Well, just create your own. For this, we're
using a reflector, just a California Sun
bounce reflector, very simple, rectangular piece of material on a frame,
but you of course, could just use a piece of
cardboard, a piece of wood, or if you're in a real
pinch with a tall friend, get them to hold a jumper or a t shirt or a coat
up in the air, and you can have exactly
the same effect. We've swung the shot
around a little bit, just so that my background is in a shadier part of the garden, because if I shade Libby with a scrim
or with a reflector, trying to reduce the
sun striking her, and the background is
still in sunshine. Of course, I run the risk of
my subject being quite dark, relatively, my background
just blowing out. Now, that might be
an effect to use. It might look
brilliant, but I don't want that in this
particular instance. So I've just swung my
camera angle around. I've got the old
doorway and some of the IV in the
background here. We're casting a
shadow, and again, just look at the cat
sights in the eyes. Absolutely beautiful. One thing I'm having to be quite
careful of here today, and this isn't in
every situation, but it is if you find yourself photographing in a
garden or a green space, is if you look at the
color of the light being reflected onto Libby,
it's quite green. And that's because
everything behind me and everything around
us is plant life, and the sun is just
striking it and bouncing green yellow light
back at our subject. So one of the tricks
I'm going to have to do here is make sure that
I calibrate the shot. I'm going to take a photograph
of a color checker and we're going to calibrate
any green casts out. And that just helps me
in the post production to make sure I get the
most beautiful skin tones. Again, this is
really simple to do, and all I'm trying
to show Is there are techniques for you to
create beautiful pictures, even when you find yourself
in what most of us would consider to be
suboptimal lighting. Though it is lovely and warm, it's great to be out in the sun. In
4. Five Ideas For Harsh Light - Idea 2: It's end it is. One of the things about
direct sunlight that people misunderstand is that in its own right, it's
not bad light. It's just generally coming
from the wrong direction. If you think about
the Golden hour or just before the Golden hour, when the sun is on the horizon, part of the reason
that works so well is because the angle of the
sun is very shallow, so it's lighting in to
the mask of the face. And if you think about how
you'd light a studio shot, that's true in there, too. So the problem isn't
that I've got sunlight. The problem is I've got
sunlight in the wrong place. It's right overhead, and it
casts these downward shadows. They've got hard edges. The thing about direct
sunlight is it's almost the ultimate
hard edged shadow, and it creates dark patches into the eye sockets
under the chin. That might work for you
if you're trying to do something theatrical
or dramatic. But most of the
time, we're trying to flatter the features. So don't be afraid of posing
someone in hard sunlight, or direct sunlight, understand some of the tricks you could
use to work around it. Here what we're
doing is I'm placing L into the brightest
sunlight I can find. And to do that, what I'm
actually doing weirdly enough, is I'm watching the floor. So I'm talking to
her and positioning her until she's in
a gap in between the shadows cast
by the trees and the various bits of architecture we have
here in this garden. Because if I have the shadows of leasonings across her face, why it might be dramatic? It might be theatrical. It might be actually stunning. It isn't what I'm looking for in this particular instance. What I'm looking for
here is clean light. So I'll position Libby, so she's in a gap where I can see the outline of the shadows, and she's in between or rather her shadow is in
between the other shadow. So I know she's casting her
own shadow on the ground. What I then asked her
to do is simply to tip her head back because
by raising her chin, Tipping her nose back, the angle relative to the sun
is evening out. And now the sunlight is going straight in to the
mask of her face. It's filling the eye sockets. It's creating beautiful light. Admittedly, the shadows
have hard edges, but with someone like
Libby, that doesn't really matter because her
skin is really smooth. I'm not trying to I'm not trying to hide any
lumps and bumps. I'm simply trying to
create form and structure. So as she tips her head
back, I get this beautiful, look, but now I've got her looking straight
at the sunlight. Can't do that so easily, so we get her to close her eyes, tip her head back.
It's quite dreamy. It's quite ethereal.
It's quite beautiful. I'll take that shot anyway.
How stunning is that. And then on the counter 3321, open your eyes, open your eyes. I see it. Click,
close your eyes, and I've done it in the
fastest time possible. But if you look at this shot, the catch lights in her eyes, the way her eyes are glowing, the way the light is striking her face absolutely stunning. Of course, that's not the
whole story because some of it also is about
sculpting the figure. And if you look at
Libby's figure, she's got this beautiful
shape and beautiful form. And I'm not trying
to hide anything. If I had someone who wanted to look a different shape or
is sort of self conscious, maybe I'd do it a different way. But here I can use the shadows, the hard shadows to
define the shape. Anything that disappears into
shadows reduces in size. Anything that's
caught by the bright light increases in size. So you can use shape and form. In this instance, if you look
at the curves of her body, and the way the shadows fall underneath things and
light on top of things, actually what I've done
is define her form. I've created an even
more elegant photo, lighting that traditionally,
people would disregard. Of course, I can move it into
some of the dappled light. I can use some of the
shapes of the leaves, and the little bits of branches to create a slightly
different shot, a slightly more
interesting shot. But here on the whole, I've gone for a super
clean, super sculpted, super strong, hard
sunlight photograph. Stint
5. Five Ideas For Harsh Light - Idea 3: Of course, we're in
bright sunshine, and what's the most
archetypal thing to have when you're
in bright sunshine? Sunglasses. Now, if you're
going to use sunglasses, they're a really
easy trick, because, of course, they hide any
shadows in the ice sockets, and that's predominantly
where we struggle. Sunglasses gone. But please please make sure
the sunglasses are clean. Just before we took
this shot, sadly, we have no behind the
scenes footage of it. I asked Libby to
clean her glasses. She went e e. No,
don't do it like that. We got them cleaned
because otherwise, it's just horrible in
photoshop trying to clean them up and you never
get them to look super clean. So make sure the
glasses are clean. But then, of course,
once they're on, where you can position the face anyway you like to tell
whatever store you like, because the shadows and the sun are always going to
disappear under the chin, under the nose, it's going
to define the cheek bones. You're going to get
some interesting shapes and form, but in the end, you'll never know that the
eye sockets would have deep shadows because it's
covered by the shades. And if you tip the angles right, you can have
reflections of the sky, reflections of the sun. You can have them looking at
camera though you'd never know necessarily that there's eye contact with the camera. All of these shots are great. Why are they great? Well, simply because it tells
the right story. Everything in the image makes
sense. It's a sunny day. They're wearing shades. What
else is there to talk about? It's absolutely in line
with what you'd expect. Here, again, we've moved Libby in and out of
kind of dappled lie. Sometimes it looks almost
like she's got tattoos where the shadows of the leaves and the vines and things are
rolling across her skin. You can do all of that. But
it's a simple way to create a summery, sunny,
beautiful portrait.
6. Five Ideas For Harsh Light - Idea 4: It's end it is. So here's another option. If I were to really work
with the direct sunlight, but I want something
where I've got control, almost a studio style lighting, one thing I can do is
to throw up a scrim. Now, a scrim is simply
like a reflector, but instead of bouncing light back or blocking
light out completely, it lets light pass through. If you wanted to, you
could put a bit of net curtain or even a
sheet, white sheet. Onto a frame or just hold it up so light
is coming through it, and it will create
much the same effect. Many of you will know this
without even realizing it. If you've been in a lounge or in a hotel room maybe
and the sun is striking the net curtains on
the window and you look at this beautiful soft
light in the room, Well, this is exactly
the same device. What's happening when
we bring up the scream, and I'm using a round
pop at one here. Ideally, for me, I prefer
square rigid frame screams. They're much easier to handle. They don't flex and flop. But obviously, I can just drop
this thing out of the bag. There it is. It's in my
hands in no time at all. They're easy to carry.
They're very cheap. So we're using a small
rig scrim today. But personally, I would
like a big rectangle one like the studio soft boxes I
have back in the building. So you pop it up, you put
it in line with the sun, so it's technically
casting a shadow. But it is letting
some light through. So here I've got Libby in
line with the sunshine. And then I'm just throwing a
shadow through the screen, or throwing light
through the screen, part casting shadow, part becoming the source
of the illumination. And if I position the
scrim in the right place, if you look at the catchlights
in our eyes, I know, I bang on about catchlights in every single video
because they're my guide. They're the sort of talisman that bring you to the
right quality of light. If I've got those
catchlights right, I've probably got the light
right everywhere else. So we move the scrim around
until there's this glow. On Libby's face. Eyes light up. The cat sights are where
I'd love to see them. There's smooth soft shadows because my light source
is about a meter across. So it's exactly like a
large studio soft box. And just by moving things
around and manipulating it, I can get all sorts of
subtly different looks. But broadly speaking, what I've done is create a soft light. I've created a
light source out of this 1 meter circle of
translucent fabric. So if I take the scrim away, what I'm going to get are hard highlights and
hard edged shadows. The contrast ratios are huge. Part of the skin is
probably going to blow out. Part of the skin is probably going to
block up into black. You don't really want any
of that unless you're doing a very particular
stylized look. Here, as soon as the
scream goes into play, I get this wonderful soft light, exactly the same
quality of light as I would expect to
get in the studio. It's just a very
simple technique.
7. Five Ideas For Harsh Light - Idea 5: N N. Okay, so we've
used a scrim. We've used shadows. But what about using
something like a reflector to create a
different light source? Instead of shielding the light, we're going to
bounce some light. So you have options here. Here, I've got a very simple
rectangular reflector. It's about three foot by two foot, I think off
the top of my head. It's a little
California sun bounce. It's my favorite reflector, and I love it because
this aluminum frame stays absolutely rigid. It's got a silver side and
a white side and you get all sorts of variations on this. But why
would you bother? Well, it means, again,
I've got control. I can line the shot up more
or less where I want to and then bounce light in as a
key light. Is my main light. And I've got I can govern where the wind's running, where the
light's running. I can govern what's
in the background, and I can do all of that, simply by positioning my
subject where I want it, and then bouncing
light in as a key. If I use the silver side, this is not a mirror, so it's silvered, but
it's not a mirror, then the whole of
this surface is going to be bright and
sparkly and it's going to punch nearly as much sunlight as it would do on its
own back at Libby. And as long as I keep it flat. So whatever I do, I never ever put my hand in the
middle of the reflector. I always hold the outer
rails and keep it as square and as flat as I can. And that way, all of the light
that strikes it is going to go back as a reflection
onto my subject. And that's really important. When you're working
with the silver side, you have to maneuver it round, angle it, and you'll see when the light is striking your
subject. With the white side. Well, the thing about
a matt surface. And this is a
governing rule when it comes to lighting
in photography. Any matt surface will reflect light equally
in all directions. So it doesn't matter what
angle you look at it, the light coming back at it is going to be exactly the same. Unlike the silver, whereas you look at it from
different angles, you're going to get
struck by completely different levels of light. Subtle, true, but important. So if I want a really punchy, sparkly light that's
very directional, I'll throw the silver side up, and I'm going to position
it until the light reflected onto Libby's face is creating these
stunning catchlights, and I can see where the shadows
are forming on her face, on her cheek bones, under her
chin, and under her nose. And I'll move her face
around a little bit. I'll move the reflector
around a until I get exactly what
I'm looking for. And there's a bit of
instinct in here, but it's still governed by those beautiful cats
lights in the eyes. And the other thing
about this, as we've moved Libby round, is the wind is now running in the same direction as her hair. With her hair, she's
got a long fringe, and it's pushing the
hair off her face, and all too often, the light and the wind are running
in the wrong direction. If you can get it so that the
hair is blown off the face, it's a much more
flattering image for anyone who's
got longer hair. It doesn't make any
difference to me. It makes a big difference
to some of my subjects. So I can maneuver Libya around, I can maneuver the
reflector around. The other thing I can do,
of course, is if I want to, I can pitch Libby's
face down slightly, and I can bring the
reflector down as well. So I've got quite a
low light source. And golden hour,
the golden hour, this thing that
all photographers talk about really is nothing more than the angle
of the sun as it approaches the horizon.
Well, guess what? The silver reflector
or a tiger stripe because it's a slight gold
one or true golden reflector. As long as you bring the
angle of the reflector down, effectively, you're creating
a little mini golden now. And now the color
might not be the same, certainly not the same
in the background. That is a giveaway. But at
least in the foreground, as I'm bringing the
reflectors down and round, that light is coming
from almost horizontal, exactly the same angle
as you would get during those beautiful moments
when you're sipping with a peanut coolda on
a Caribbean beach. Well, at least in
my imagination, it's exactly the same
thing. It's the same trick. And I'm just using
knowledge of that to create stunning lighting
here for a portrait. Ten
8. Five Ideas For Harsh Light - Bonus Idea: End it is end Okay, so all of the techniques we've
used so far have relied on a little more than
a little bit of knowledge of how light rolls, a little bit of knowledge
of how shadows form, how reflections are made, and how you can use all
of that to good effect. But you could, if you wished, use a little bit of tech. In this particular instance, we're going to use
off camera flash. Now, this video is not the place to explore off
camera flash in detail. It of all the things we teach is probably the most complex, but it's also one of
the most rewarding. So here we're just using
a very simple setup. I'm using an rom three, just a simple head with an
EN Cro softbox on the front, just to soften a light, create
some soft edged shadows. And we're just turning
the power of a light up really quite high for
this particular model. These are 200 what
seconds or thereabouts. And to overpower sunlight, I'm going to at least
going to start by using every little
bit of that power. Now, when you're doing
off camera flash, there's a couple of things
you have to remember. When you're trying to control the darkness of the background, the only control you have available to you is
your shutter speed. When you're trying to
control the subject, the only thing you
have available to you is the power of the light. If you're trying to
control the whole image, you can use your
aperture and or your IO. And it's remembering these
four variables constantly as you try to create
the image you're looking for that can create, well, havoc, but they
can also create magic. So for this first shot,
I've positioned the light, and I've set up the
power on the strobe to not quite override
the sunlight, but certainly negate
its harder elements. So if you look at this shot, you'll see that the shadows
are vastly reduced. There's a beautiful
light on Libby's face. The background is
beautifully lit, too. All in all, all of the pieces of the puzzle are
coming together. And I've adjusted my
shutter speed, my iso, my aperture, and the power on that strobe to bring
that all together. Like I said, this isn't the
video to go into detail. This is more just have you thought about using
off camera flash. Then I reverse it around. So for the first shot,
I use the sun in the same direction
as the strobe. But for this second shot,
we've moved location. Now what I'm doing is I'm
using the sun from behind, so it creates a beautiful
edge light rim light, call it what you like. And I'm using the
keylight, my strobe, my off camera flash, to pump light in soft light. It's off this beautiful,
simple little softbox. It creates a really
lovely lush shape to the edge of the shadows. Pop that in there,
balanced it all out again. Background is controlled by my shutter speed, the
brightness, sorry, if the background is controlled
by my shutter speed, the brightness of my subject is controlled by the
power of the flash. The brightness of the
entire image is controlled by IO and or aperture. You've got four things
you can play with, two of them work independently, and two of them work combined. So I balanced all of those out. We will pop the settings up
onto the screen for you, so you can see exactly
what I was doing. But what we've got is
this beautiful shirt that almost looks naturally lit. Until you really explore it and understand that you're seeing a key light striking
Libby's face. You're seeing real sunlight, actually creating
sculpting around her shoulder and around
her neck and on her hair. And all of that comes together
to create something that's really it's not simple in a sense it can be
tricky to set up, but it is simple
when you think I've only got one light and
I've got sunshine. And in a later video, we'll talk through in
detail how to create beautiful images using just
a single off camera flash. I
9. Five Ideas For Harsh Light - Outro: It is. So I really hope you've
enjoyed this class. During the video, we've
shown you how to light and create stunning portraits in
the harshest of sunlight. We've used shade.
We've used scrims. We've used reflectors, and
we've used off camera flash. And hopefully, the
ideas in the class will inspire you to create
some images of your own, and we would love to see them. If you create a
project, please do upload it using
the buttons below, and we promise to not only have a look and
not only love them, but we provide you with some comments and
some encouragement. If you've enjoyed this
particular class, please do follow us
using the buttons above. Also, why not hop across to mastering portrait
photography.com, which is kind of
the spiritual home of the Mastering portrait
photography Podcast, which you can subscribe to. And also, it's a whole heap of resources dedicated
to the craft, the creativity, and the business
of portrait photography. But until next time,
whatever else you do, be kind to yourself. Take care.
10. Five Ideas For Harsh Light - Outtakes: This time with haze. Hey. Hey. Libby. Her name is Libby. Libby. Katie, you just you
take the way off. What you can't see on camera is Katie just lying out there. Pillows, Duve. You got just
hot chocolate. Ridiculous. While we do the work. All of us. Snuggles, Katie,
you can't hit me. Oh. There's a fly in the studio
in case you're wondering. Alright. I'll do it. Quick. Someone give
her the flap jacks. Any other discussions
that people want to have before
I hit this thing? What's the weather? What's on the Telly tonight? Why
are you have for dinner? Anything else?
Everyone to right? Looking at watch, are
we okay for time? Good. Ah. Okay. Ah, the
wheels have fallen off.
Paul Wilkinson, Portrait Photographer
