10 Tips to IMPROVE your Natural Light Portraits

Hey everyone! I love doing portrait photography with natural light. It's the lighting style that I use the most. So today I'm going to share with you 10 natural lighting mistakes you're doing and how to fix them with examples. Today's video is sponsored by PPA, the Professional Photographers of America where you can find essential tools for your business and I'll tell you everything you need to know about them a little bit later on. So let's get into it because we have so much to cover. The first natural lighting mistake is ignoring the background. Before we get into how to light your subject, one of the elements often overlooked in portraits is the way the light is affecting your background which can quickly make or break your photo. An easy rule to remember when you are starting out is to make sure the background has the same lighting as your subject. For example, if your subject is in the shade, make sure your background is in the shade as well. If your subject is shaded but the background is in harsh lighting, you will end up with an unbalanced and unflattering image where the subject is not the emphasis of the frame. The second mistake is doing your photoshoot at the wrong time of day. You need to take into consideration the quality of the lighting so the lighting can suit the style of photos you're creating. I used to make this mistake all the time when I first started photography. I wanted to create soft, dreamy portraits but for some reason I would schedule my photoshoots for midday when the sun is at the strongest, not considering that lighting plays a huge role in the final outcome of your photos. Number three goes hand in hand with the second mistake and that is avoiding midday sun and yes, you heard that correctly, the mistake is avoiding the midday sun. While I do shoot with a lot of golden hour lighting and during the late afternoon when the sun is softer like you see in these images here, I also tend to shoot a lot during the brighter times of the day as well so you might be surprised to learn that these photos I'm showing you right now were taken during the middle of the day when the sun is at its highest and harshest. The reason you don't want to avoid midday sun is you can actually capture some great photos with this kind of lighting. Taking photos during this time of day can help colors and tone come across deeper and richer which results in more vibrant and contrasty looking images. The reason this mistake goes hand in hand with the last one is you'll need to master lots of different lighting scenarios to add variety to your portfolio. Not every photo shoot is going to match being shot during golden hour. Some shoots need this harsher lighting to bring together the concept. When you are using harsh midday sun, while you can take advantage of the harsh shadows and light to create some striking portraits, you can also make use of shade and backlight to soften the light as well which is what I have done in a lot of these examples. The fourth mistake is top light but before we get into that I want to let you know more about the Professional Photographers of America who is sponsoring today's video. If you're a photographer you should check out the tools and resources PPA have available to help grow your business and improve your skills as a photographer. PPA has heaps of benefits including access to business tools like customizable contracts, legal resources, marketing templates and educational content to learn from. As a member you can also protect your photography equipment with up to $15,000 worth of coverage so you don't need to worry about damaging, losing or having your gear stolen. So if you want to learn more about PPA please be sure to use link in my description where you can save $25 off your membership. So back to our fourth mistake which is top light. You need to make sure you are not capturing portraits of people with raccoon eyes where we have dark shadows cast under a subject's eyes. This usually happens when the sun is at a high point in the sky so if you are making use of midday lighting you need to keep this in mind. This also happens if you don't position your subject properly in regards to the lighting. There are a couple of ways that you can avoid this. First is to fill in the shadows and you can do this with lighting like a flash or you can use a reflector to bounce light back to the subject's face and this is something that I'll talk about a little bit later in this video as well. You could also use a scrim to diffuse the lighting. Another way to avoid these raccoon eyes is by changing your perspective and shooting from a different angle or composition or asking your subject to move. You can ask them to move into a spot with better lighting conditions or ask them to pose in a way to remove these shadows which usually means having their head angled upwards towards the light instead of away from it. Mistake number five is not paying attention to the direction of the light. Sometimes you will be outside taking photos and the light on your subject looks generally nice but you end up with some photos where you have a little splotch of light hitting their nose or cheek. Sometimes you'll have one side of their face almost overexposed with light. This happens when you are not paying attention to the direction in which the light is hitting your subject and there's a super easy fix. First you need to pay attention to when this is happening and I know that's not easy especially if you're starting out with portrait photography. There are so many different things you need to be paying attention to from your camera settings to making sure your subject is relaxed, giving them directions, choosing your compositions and this is another thing to add to the list to pay attention to. But once you start to see it, it becomes more and more obvious to the point where it will become second nature and this pretty much applies to all the tips in this video as well. So keep an eye out and when you start to see some random splotches of light or light that's hitting your subject unevenly, you can either ask them to move or you yourself can move to the side to shoot from a different angle. Sometimes all it takes is rotating like 30 to 40 degrees away or towards the light to have the light source be intentional. Mistake six is not having enough fill light on your subject and this tends to happen the most when you're shooting in a backlit scenario. Backlight is when your light source is behind your subject and you'll shoot this way usually to create soft and dreamy looking images like this. These images work well because while there is light streaming into the lens, the subject is also well lit and easily visible in the frame. On the other hand, you can see this image is not lit very well. We have the same backlight happening but this time the subject's face doesn't have any fill light on their face. Instead of standing out in the frame, they blend in and your eye is not drawn into them because they are too dark in the frame. If you want to learn how to take better backlit photos, I have a video that shares all my tips and tricks about that which I'll leave linked in the description. Mistake seven is not paying attention to the catch light. The catch light is a small bright spot in the iris that adds life to the eyes, making the portrait look more engaging. When using natural light out on location, getting the catch light in the eyes is a good indication that you are lighting your portrait well enough to create a great final image. If we take the example from the previous mistake, now you can see the difference between these photos. The image on the left has catch lights in the model's eyes which makes them more visible and eye-catching and the image on the right doesn't and thus the subject's eyes blend into the portrait and look a little bit more dull. So you want to make sure you can see the catch lights in your subject's eyes. Mistake number eight is taking images with color casts on your subject. One of the clearest examples of this is when you're taking photos in a green location like a park. Since you are surrounded by the color green, when the sun hits the grass and trees it's going to bounce that green colored light back onto your subject's skin. You'll end up with photos that look like this which can be unflattering for a portrait. One of the ways you can avoid this is by using a reflector. You can place the reflector in the way of the green that is causing the color cast to either remove it completely or at least minimize it as much as possible. I know it's not possible for everyone to have an assistant on set or even holding a reflector while you're shooting on your own. Sometimes it might not even be possible to block the light that's causing these colored reflections. So for example, during this photo shoot the model was wearing a bright orange dress and the back light I was shooting with was causing the light to reflect orange back on her skin. In these cases, we can rely on editing to remove the color cast instead. The second last mistake I see a lot of beginner photographers making is relying too much on shade and don't get me wrong. Shade is really great to shoot portraits in. You are in more of a controlled lighting environment. The light is soft and diffused. You can easily find spots where both the background and subject are in the shade and the shade is an easy way to capture flattering portraits. But you don't want your entire photo session to just be in the shade. If you do this, you're going to end up with images that all look the same and the set of photos is going to look flat and lack dimension. If you're not super confident with natural lighting just yet, then consider using just five to ten minutes of your portrait session as the opportunity to experiment with lighting. In these five minutes, you can pick a natural lighting technique that you want to explore more of. I would suggest backlit is a short span of time at most of your portrait sessions. At worst, you won't lose too many images if it doesn't work out. But what is more likely is that you will get some nice images with new lighting and you'll start to build up your confidence in being able to spot different natural lighting scenarios to shoot with when you're out on location. The final mistake you're making is something you should be doing every single time you pick a spot to shoot in and that is assessing the light. You don't want to fall into the trap of only picking a location for the way the background looks and completely forgetting to think about the lighting. I would argue finding a spot to shoot in because it has good lighting is far more important than picking a spot based on the background. I've taken some of my best photos in the worst locations and the photo still manages to look good regardless of the backdrop because the lighting is good. So keep that in mind the next time you're trying to pick what location to take your photo in during your photo shoot. Those are the 10 mistakes I see photographers making when using natural light for their work. Let me know which one you found the most helpful in the comments and please don't forget to check out the Professional Photographers of America by using the link in my description. But that is all I have for today's video. Thank you so so much for watching. I make new videos every single week so I'll see you all next time. Bye!