Newbie Mistakes When Shooting Portraits in Natural Light

Photography Tips  •  Portrait Photography

Natural light photography is where a lot of us begin our photography journey. And unfortunately, the mistakes that we make during our early days tend to stick with us as we progress in the journey. In this video, photographer Omar Gonzalez highlights the most common mistakes that beginner photographers make when taking portraits in natural light, and also shares ways to correct them:

Like Gonzalez points out, one fundamental mistake that beginners make is to prioritize the subject and not the light. As beginners, we don’t analyze how the light interacts with the subject resulting in images that aren’t much appealing.

Ideally, we should always start by assessing the light and how the subjects appear in that light. Gonzalez shares a convenient method we can use to identify the best direction for the subject to turn. All it takes is simply moving our hands to see where it gets lit the best. You can see the demonstration in the video.

Being a natural light photographer also has some drawbacks. For instance, the subjects can appear to have raccoon eyes when the light is coming from above. And if the light gets reflected from the ground, that’ll result in a Halloween lighting effect. Both of these are undesirable in a portrait photoshoot. There are also many instances where light reflected from various surfaces can cause the colors on the subject to appear unnatural.

“Sometimes we overuse the shade because we’re afraid of the sun.”

As a workaround, we tend to rely a bit too much on shade and avoid direct sunlight as much as possible. But even working in the shade can get tricky. Gonzalez shares a handful of tips that’ll help you take better pictures in the shade, and even in direct sunlight.

Many natural light photographers swear that natural light is all they need to take photos. But what if there’s no light? In unfavorable circumstances, it is perfectly okay to use artificial lighting. In fact, you can produce more consistent results that way. So, it is always a good idea to learn to work with flash and light modifiers.

Towards the end of the video, Gonzalez also shares some images that he took using flash and compares them with those taken with natural light. Be sure to watch the complete video. If you’re a budding natural light portrait photographer, you’ll hugely benefit from this video.