In this episode, Shooting Portraits with Natural Light.
Hi everybody, welcome to another episode
of Exploring Photography right here on
AdoramaTV.
I'm Mark Wallace in Paris, France joined by Maeva,
she is one of the most spectacular
models in all of France,
and one of the fun things about Maeva is
that she doesn't speak any English, but
that's my fault I should be speaking..
French cuz we're in Paris! So we're going to
have to work this out. It's going to be
really, really fun! Well the cool thing is
I am in a little apartment hotel, and I
love these windows that are on this side
of the wall. They let in really nice soft
light, because they're glazed windows, so
what we're going to do is, we're going to
shoot with Maeva, and we're going to try to
do some black and white, and maybe some
color photos, with really shallow
depth-of-field. So Maeva, we're going to
have you come right back here to this
chair. A couple of challenges that we're
going to face with these windows is that
we have totally natural light, and so
what we need to do is, we need to react
to that light, and I need to do that. I'm
going to try to shoot handheld, because I
would really want to get in here, and get
close, and get some really interactive
shots. So to do that I'm going to have to
watch the settings on my camera,
because it's not a lot of light coming in. So the
first thing I'm going to do is, set my
ISO to ISO 400. I might have to take that
up or down depending on how much light
is coming through the windows, because I
want to keep my shutter speed to around
between 60 and 125th of a second. If I
can keep it to 125th that's better,
because then I won't get camera shake.
Now to accomplish that what I'm going to
do is, I'm going to shoot with my
aperture wide open at f/1.4. This is a 50mm lens.
I'm doing that for two
reasons, one because we don't have a lot
of light, and secondly because Mava's eyes
are gorgeous, and what I want to do is
make sure that they're tack sharp. But
let everything else fall out of focus
that will give us a much more pleasing
photograph. So without further ado, we're
going to start shooting with the light
coming in through these windows,
and I'll show you exactly what we get.
One of the things we really have to pay
attention to, is the direction of light. And
it's coming from the windows this way,
and so I'm going to make sure that Maeva
is always looking toward the windows, so
that we can have her lights, or her eyes
light up, and get really nice specular
highlights. Now what we might do, a little
bit later on is, have her turn around
this way. So we have the highlight on
this side of her face, and let her face
actually fall into shadow. So we get sort
of highlights on her cheek. We'll play
with that, and so I'm going to take two
shots. One with her toward the window, and
one was her looking away. So you can
see the difference, we will hold that
right there.
Let's turn you around this way. So you're
looking away from the yeah.
So this shot we have may be looking just
a little bit away, and sort of straight
forward, but we still get really amazing
light coming across her face.Like let me
shoot this, and show you exactly what it
looks like, because all the reflections
in the room. The walls, the bed, all the
sheets, all that kind of stuff, really
makes your eyes sparkle. So let me shoot
a few of these, because I love it look
right at me.. beautiful.
I have to kneel down here to make this
work, but one of the things I want to
do here is, even though I'm shooting with
the 50 mm lens, what they really
want to do is get in nice and tight, but
I'm fighting that urge, because if I get
too close even with the 50 mm
lens, it's going to distort her face, and
so I'm going to come back a little ways.
Shoot these shots, and then crop in
post-production, because I want to make
sure her face looks nice and natural. So
I'm on my knees back here, and we'll
shoot a few more, so you may have a look
right at me.
Well that's all there is to it remember
to make sure you keep an eye on your ISO
to make sure that your shutter speed
doesn't fall below 1/16th of a second.
When you're shooting handheld, you can
get your shutter speed a little bit
faster, that's even better, because you
want your models eyes to look tack sharp.
So make sure you pay attention to what's
going on. So you can make adjustments as
the ambient light changes, also get a
fantastic model like Maeva. She is
spectacular and she knows a little bit
more English than she lets on. So she's a smartypants!
Thank you so much for
joining me for this episode of Exploring Photography.
Don't forget to subscribe,
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can see all the out takes and extras that
don't make it in the video. Thanks again
for joining me I'll see you again next time!