It’s summer again, and it’s travel season again. Picture source | Small Edition Butler, whether it is a street photoshoot between girlfriends or a couple outing to take a unique and beautiful group photo of people and scenery - different from simple landscape photography, the cha

It’s summer again, and it’s travel season again.

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Whether it is a street photoshoot between girlfriends or a couple traveling to take a unique and beautiful group photo of the boyfriend/girlfriend - different from a simple landscape photo, the characters have smart expressions and rich emotions. This naturally makes us yearn for portrait photography.

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The summer sunshine, green grass and woods provide an excellent background color. Even a short cloudy day can coat the characters with a soft and calm filter; snapshots and posed shots are all He has a unique style, and every smile of the characters gives the photos unlimited vividness and vitality.

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Portrait photography is rich and varied, with different styles. At the same time, it is also the most common type of photography that we come into contact with and use in our daily lives.

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So, how to take good portraits, and what techniques should be used in different environments and different shooting concepts? This series will be divided into two parts, which will introduce you to portrait lighting and portrait composition respectively.

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Portrait light and shadow

. Metering modes in different environments

In sunny/cloudy/forward lighting/backlighting different light environments, the photos are too bright and the exposure is too dark. Common difficulties in portrait photography. So choosing the right metering mode is key.

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In a sunny environment, evaluative metering and center-weighted average metering can produce two distinctive photo effects. Evaluative metering takes the average brightness of all areas, which is suitable for taking photos of multiple people and travel photos (a combination of people and scenes).

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However, it should be noted that due to strong light on sunny days, sometimes there will be a large difference in brightness between the characters and the background. At this time, using evaluative metering is prone to overexposure problems, while using spot metering can choose to give priority to correctly exposing the person's face to ensure the clarity of the subject.

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In the cloudy environment as shown below, the girls, tennis courts, and woods are evenly illuminated in the entire environment. At this time, evaluative metering (average metering of the entire screen) is more applicable because it It can better coordinate the exposure of the entire screen.

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Backlight shooting is more suitable for spot metering or partial metering. As shown in the picture below, the little girl is in the dark when the backlight is taken. At this time, the main thing is to expose the girl's face correctly to ensure that her facial details are clearly visible. Therefore, the metering range should focus on a small area of ​​the girl's subject or face, rather than the entire environment.

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. How to take outline light under backlight

Beautiful outline light and hair light under backlight must be the favorite of many girls, and they are also a must-have for taking portraits of people.

If you want to take contour light , you need to pay attention to three points:

① Characters cannot block the backlight source

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As shown above, the picture was taken at the tennis hall at night The girl, because the character is sandwiched between the character and the backlight source in the upper left corner Corner, the girl’s face is not too dark, and the light source hits the girl’s hair from the back left side, forming a perfect outline light and adding a little three-dimensionality to the girl’s face.

② The background brightness needs to be lower than the outline light brightness

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Generally speaking, it is difficult to shoot outline light in relatively empty places, because the outline light needs to be contrasted with a darker background color to be highlighted. We can look for woods, dark parts of buildings, the ground, etc. For example, in the picture above of the dog wearing sunglasses, the dark green woods behind it provide an excellent background color. The outline light hits its back from behind, showing a beautiful hairline light against the background.

. The facial fill light needs to be lower than the backlight brightness

When shooting a backlit portrait, in order to make the face of the character sufficiently bright, the fill light/ reflector is necessary. When filling in light for a portrait, remember to pay attention to the brightness of the fill light being lower than the brightness of the backlight.

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As shown in the picture above, the fill light on the faces of the two girls is weak. Although the faces still show a certain shadow, they successfully create a beautiful hair light.

Light and shadow, and composition are the two major techniques of photography. There are two elements that require special attention and learning when taking portraits.

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This issue shares the metering and contour light shooting techniques for outdoor portrait photography. The next issue will take you to explore the importance of composition in portrait photography.

See you in the next issue~

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