Natural Light Portraiture HOWTO

[ronlane]

For this particular setup, it was morning and these are east-facing windows. So the sun was more or less "coming through" the window, which gave me quite a well defined light. As of right now, the sun has risen out of view of the window, but the sky has cleared up. So, I have a very bright clear sky (nature's softbox) behind my window. The light NOW is quite soft but still well enough defined for a portrait, I think. I am pretty sure I'd get better portraits out of it now, in fact.. As the day wears on, the eastern sky will get less and less bright, so the light in my living room will get more and more diffuse and soft.

I *think* the standard "ideal" is an expanse of clear sky casting light through the window, but with the sun itself not casting light through. This morning, I was able to use the sun+clouds, and wound up with a slightly harsh result.

Any time of day that you can achieve this is a fine time of day!

But seriously, 5 minutes with a hand mirror will teach you everything, once you know what the nose-shadow patterns are supposed to look like.

This was shot with a 50mm on a crop sensor, but then cropped further. It's probably something like "100mm equivalent" at this point (i.e. the look of a 100mm lens on a full frame camera, give or take 10mm). f/5.6, since I had tons of room behind and knew focus was going to be an issue. The camera was at or slightly above my eye line.

I was TRYING for a straight on shot, tilting my head slightly back. Now that Derrel has revealed the secrets of Feminine Head Tilt, I was trying to look manly Shoulders slightly turned, face straight-on to the camera, chin out slightly. I did NOT play "chin-thrust, tongue on the roof of the mouth" games, because I was too busy thinking about light, and about hitting the same pose each shot!

Thank you for the information.