Outdoor Maternity Photography Lighting Techniques

Lighting  •  Photography Tips

The sun is one of our most vital elements when shooting natural outdoor shots, but it doesn’t always cooperate. Sometimes our timing is off or the elements are just not working out, but either way there’s a great on-location work around which wedding photographer Pyre Jirsa explains in this video tutorial:

As the video demonstrates, we need not despair when the sun is not directly available for us as a key (or even rim) light source. Of course, Jirsa’s work around involves a rather expensive piece of equipment—the 500w Profoto B1—but assuming this something your budget can afford, it’s a rather neat work around. And though you could get the same effect using other flashes equal about the same intensity (in most cases you’d need a number of smaller flashes to get anywhere near 500 watts), it is sort of nice to haul around only a single strobe and battery pack for that amount of juice.

Still, I think the results are quite subtle. Is it worth the price? (The B1 tends to retail for over $2000!) Or perhaps you know of better, less expensive work arounds?