What kind of lighting?

[smackitsakic]

Hey everyone,

Just curious on something...in some portrait pictures that I see (outside photos) the subject (person) is INCREDIBLY sharp and bright. The skin tones are more of a white than beige, and colours, such as clothing and eyes, really come to life. Some of these images are almost hard to look at because of the incredible brightness and vibrancy.

Are these pictures simply taken on a sunny day and then post-processed to bring out the images brightness? I don't have any specific examples saved to my computer, but i'm sure the description points out what i'm trying to get at.

 

[Restomage]

Talking about something like this?

 

[smackitsakic]

Yes, something along those lines, although moreso during mid-day sunlight with, I believe, frontlighting. It looks like in this picture there is a backlight shadow with artificial light from the front?

 

[Restomage]

This shot I took was at 12:30 and the sun is pretty much directly overhead. I light it with two SB-600s which enabled me to make him pop out and underexpose the background slightly.

 

[Goontz]

Yeah, sounds like you're just talking about the use of a flash during the day as fill light.

 

[KmH]

Yep, it takes supplimental light.

Strobed light gives the advantage of making 2 separate exposures (1 foreground (aperture) and 1 background (shutter speed), like Restomage did) that can't be done with continuous lighting.