PHOTOGRAPHY

<a href="http://500px.com/LisaHolloway">Lisa Holloway</a> is an 
internationally-published, award-winning fine art portrait photographer 
from rural Northwestern Arizona. A Canon girl since Day One, Lisa is 
self-taught and works exclusively with natural light.  She has been in 
the portraiture business, photographing clients in the Las Vegas metro 
area since 2008.  When Lisa is not pursuing her photography interests, 
she loves the outdoors, road trips, cooking, thunderstorms, and spending
 time with her husband and 10 children. 
 

In this tutorial, Lisa will demonstrate how she created backlight
 with natural light for capturing dreamy portraits outdoors. Plus, she 
shares her expert tips on how to photograph and connect with children as
 subjects. Read on and get inspired! 
 
How I Shoot Portraits With Natural Light 
by Lisa Holloway 
 
Beautiful light, a genuine connection, and a glimpse into the soul—these
 are the 3 things I strive to capture in my photography.  Even the most 
ordinary scene can be transformed into something magical when infused 
with vibrant colors, stunning natural light, and a truthful connection 
with your subject. 
 
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MAKING MAGIC

My favorite subjects to shoot are often the people closest to me—my 
own 10 children.  My two-year-old son, Elliott, has slowly been working 
his way out of the 
“run-away-from-the-camera-as-fast-as-my-little-feet-can-take-me’ phase 
and progressing into the 
‘oh-I-might-sit-here-for-a-few-pictures-if-you-let-me-have-ice-cream’ 
phase.  I had been wanting to take some updated photos of him and 
settled on a country boy theme.  I was going for something simple that 
would draw attention directly to him and allow your eyes to settle on 
his face.

We have nearly 50 hens, and I decided it would make for an 
interesting composition to incorporate one of them into the photos of my
 son.  He loves the chickens, and spends hours outside playing with them
 on an almost daily basis, so this theme was really touching on an 
interesting aspect of his childhood in rural, Northwestern Arizona.  
This also served a double purpose—it gave him an important job to do and
 bought me time to get the perfect, dare I say, magical shot.

5 TIPS FOR PHOTOGRAPHING YOUNG CHILDREN

Young, toddler aged children can be both the most challenging and
 rewarding subjects you will work with as a portrait photographer. Here 
are a few tips to make your shoot with this age range a success: 
 
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• Preparation.  Have all of the details of your shoot planned 
out and set up ahead of time—from the location to the wardrobe to any 
props that you want to incorporate (a chicken, in my case).  I chose 
simple denim coveralls for Elliott to wear for this shoot to keep the 
color palette neutral and soft, and keep the focus on him.  No 
distractions.  I chose a gentle, tame hen that we had hatched in our own
 house for this photo.  I did not want any crazy, angry hen drama!

• Location.  Choose a safe, accessible location when working 
with young children. This image was shot in tall, golden-colored grass 
that was growing at a vacant lot right next to our house. The 
accessibility, gorgeous late afternoon light, rich, golden color tones, 
and ample space for shooting with a long lens made this the perfect 
choice for me. Remember to look for those pockets of light! Your camera 
does not see the entire scene that you see with your eyes. You just need
 a little nook or cranny to shoot in that translates beautifully in a 
photograph.

• Patience.  Working with young children requires a gentle 
demeanor and patience. Lots of it. They can be energetic, easily 
distracted, silly, and sometimes (okay, a lot of the times) not at all 
interested in what you are trying to do with your camera.  Make it fun 
for them!  Leave your dignity at the door!  Do not be afraid to get down
 on their level, play with them, tell funny stories, and even make silly
 faces or gross noises – whatever you have to do to engage them and grab
 their interest, if even for only a few moments.  Remember though, every
 child is different.  Some children just need space and time.  I find 
that by working with a long lens, I am less “up in their face” and I can
 allow real moments to happen as I sit back in the distance and quietly 
capture them with my camera.

• Employ an assistant.  My husband assisted me on this shoot. 
 This was extremely helpful for chicken handling and keeping Elliott 
where I needed him.  Elliott was only able to hold the hen for a short 
time before she started to slip out of his arms, so rather than me 
running up from where I was sitting to fix this myself, my husband could
 momentarily step into the frame, put everything back in place, and I 
could take a few more shots without missing a beat. 
 
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• Quiet time.  Sometimes, the best images come from just 
sitting back, and letting natural moments happen.  In ‘Elliott & His
 Hen’, I sat back in the distance with my 200mm lens and quietly 
whispered his name just to get him to look my way.  I was ready to 
capture that exact moment that he connected with me.  I knew instantly 
that I had a winner when I saw the shot on my LCD screen.

Below are a few more natural, candid moments that I captured during this shoot: 
 
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• When all else fails… Go with the flow! At times, children 
this age are best captured just doing what they do best – exploring and 
being little kids.  Try to lose the whole ‘sit here and smile’ mindset 
and follow them quietly with your camera.  With any luck, you will 
capture a few priceless moments.  There is nothing more genuine than a 
toddler on the go!

EQUIPMENT & SETTINGS

I used my Canon 5D Mark III and 200mm 2.0L lens to capture this 
image.  I prefer working with a longer focal length as it allows my 
subject a bit of personal space, and creates a gorgeous, softly blurred 
rendering of the background.  My camera settings were ISO 400, an 
aperture of F-2.0, and a shutter speed of 1/640.  I created beautiful 
subject and background separation by shooting with a long lens and a 
wide aperture.

HOW I USED NATURAL LIGHT TO CREATE THIS IMAGE

99.9% of my work is created using available, natural light.  This 
image was no exception.  I love the challenge of working with natural 
light.  Unlike studio strobes, natural lighting changes hour to hour, 
day to day, season to season, and location to location.  It’s always 
something new!  It is so much fun for me to make it work in different 
ways.

In this particular image, I decided to use early evening back light 
from the setting sun to separate Elliott & his hen from the 
background of golden grass.  To do this, I made sure to have him 
standing a good distance from the tallest grass growing behind him.  
This physical separation created beautiful background bokeh out of the 
grass when shot with my 200L.  I also looked for an open ‘path’ with 
shorter grasses growing around him, and taller grasses to either side 
and far behind him.  This created the perfect framing to help draw your 
eye right to my subject.

I prefer to work with back lighting during the last 30 minutes of 
daylight, on up to about 15 minutes after sunset.  Elliott & His Hen
 was shot just a few minutes after the sun dipped below the horizon 
behind him.  This allowed for a soft illumination of his curly hair 
without having blown highlights in his hair that you would get if it had
 been shot earlier in the day when the sun was higher in the sky.

Below are a few of my favorite tips—all of which were used in the creation of this image.

6 TIPS TO MAKE BACK LIGHTING WORK FOR YOU

• Filter that back light!  I’m not a fan of the washed out 
hazy look or sun flare (in most cases) so my back lighting techniques 
are designed to avoid that.  By filtering the light through something 
(trees, foliage, or tall grass as in this case), you can really cut back
 on haze.

• Use a lens hood.  A lens hood is cheap and easy to use, and is a great way to reduce haze in your back lit images.

• Stand in the shade.  By physically planting yourself in a 
shady location, you eliminate the problems that arise with the sunlight 
coming directly into your lens.  If there is no shade available, try 
shooting with the sun at a slight angle to your camera.  Make sure it is
 not coming straight into your lens – unless you are shooting to 
purposefully include haze and sun flare.

• Open sky!  By open sky, I mean open sky behind you.  This allows for adequate lighting to fall on your subject’s face.

• Spot meter.  I always spot meter for my subject’s skin tones
 – this is especially important when back lighting.  You do not want to 
under-expose the most important element of your photo – your subject!

• Avoid open sky behind your subject.  Open sky is 
great behind YOU, but not so great behind your subject.  If you are 
properly exposing for your subject’s skin tones, that sky will blow out 
and be nothing but one big, ugly, distracting white blob in your photo 
that will steal attention from your subject.  Remember, our eyes settle 
on the brightest thing in a photo.  You don’t want that to be a blown 
out sky!  I made sure that golden grass filled the frame behind 
Elliott.  This kept the color palette warm and neutral, and kept the 
focus on him, where it belonged.

On occasion, I will purposefully photograph the open sky behind my 
subject if I plan on doing a composite to include the sunset in my 
image.  Below is an example where I shot the sunset separately and added
 it to the the final edited image in Photoshop: 
 
 
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 You can see a before and after of this image here: 
 
 
 
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POST-PROCESSING TIPS FOR A WARM, GOLDEN IMAGE

I always start my post-processing work flow in Lightroom 4 and finish
 up in Photoshop CS6.  In Lightroom, I really pushed the temperature and
 tint sliders to add more warmth and magenta for a golden look.  Having a
 vision in your head of how you want your image to appear when you are 
finished editing will help you get from point A to point B.  I knew that
 I wanted this image to be rich, warm, golden, and dramatic, with all 
attention on Elliott. 
 
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I tend to work in a lot of layers once I am in Photoshop.  Here are a
 few tricks I utilized on this photo to further enhance that warm, 
golden look that I was going for.

I darkened and added contrast to my background by creating a few 
curves layers and playing with different blending modes to add contrast 
and saturation.  I incorporated additional color toning to this image 
using curves and solid color fill layers.  Elliott’s face was given more
 dramatic dimensionality using 2 separate levels layers – one to 
brighten the highlights, and a second to deepen the shadows.  I 
brightened and added contrast to his eyes by dodging and burning.

Once the color toning and contrasting was completed, I cropped the 
image to my liking and added a soft, hazy vignette using levels.  At 
this point, I sharpened and saved!

You can see a full before and after of this image here:

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In my eyes, this is the perfect image of my sweet baby boy. It is a 
pure, real, and uncluttered look into his very soul—an image I can look 
back on as he grows up as a glimpse into the past and of the little boy 
he once was. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my tutorial. I hope you
 found it to be helpful. You can continue to follow my work here on <a href="http://500px.com/LisaHolloway">500px</a>.

For more in-depth details on my post-processing techniques, you can 
leave a comment for me below. I can also be reached via email at <a href="mailto:ljhollowayphotography@gmail.com">ljhollowayphotography@gmail.com</a>. I offer online classes to help you achieve your vision through editing. 
 
 
 
source : <a href="https://iso.500px.com/backlight-natural-light-portrait-photo-tutorial/">https://iso.500px.com/backlight-natural-light-portrait-photo-tutorial/</a> 
 
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How To Shoot Dreamy Backlit Portraits With Natural Light

Lisa Holloway is an internationally-published, award-winning fine art portrait photographer from rural Northwestern Arizona. A Canon girl...

How To Shoot Dreamy Backlit Portraits With Natural Light

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