How to take better photos - Portraits with Flash

In part 2 of his mini series - professional photographer Andy Newson gives us some tips on taking portraits with flash.

Sometimes we refer to using flash outside as ‘fill flash’. This is a good technique for a number of applications, one would be in harsh sunlight. If you’re taking a photo on a sunny day, say at midday, the lighting will be very high contrast and can cause unflattering shadows under the eyes and nose. Forcing the flash to be on, you are using the flash to fill-in those harsh shadows. That combined with the natural light can make a much more flattering portrait.

Another application would be if you wanted to photograph someone with a sunset in the background. One good way to keep the colour and beauty of the sunset is photograph with the flash, you’ll illuminate your subject and keep the lovely colours of the sunset.

Flattering Portraits
We’ve all had a photo taken of us or perhaps one we’ve taken ourselves where the subject looks like a bunny caught in the headlights!? Using the flash on your camera can have that effect, as a rule photographers like to keep the light source away from the camera, because the angled light source is much more flattering for portraits.

When you don’t have the luxury or know-how to use off-camera flash or studio lighting, try using natural light for some very flattering portraits. On a reasonably bright day, a window in your house will make for a great light source. Use it so that the light falls from the window in to your subject, don’t place the subject in front of the window and then photograph them with the window behind, as the camera will expose for the window and you will have a person in silhouette. So position yourself near the window with your subject near by with the light falling on them. Remember not to block the light yourself. Window light portraits are amongst the most flattering techniques for portraits in my opinion, give it a go!

One last technique is to ‘bounce light’. Photographers use ‘reflectors’ to bounce light. Photographic reflectors don’t cost the earth, somewhere in the region of about £40, you can buy them from most photographic shops, like Jessops or www.karlu.com. If you like, you can actually use a large sheet of white card or polystyrene. You’ll need to play around a bit, but basically you’re using the reflector (or sheet of card!) to angle the light on to your subject. So let’s say you’re taking a portrait outdoors, you could position your subject with their back to the sun and you could bounce the sun light back on to their face with the reflector. This is a really good technique for portraits, because the sun will cause ‘back-lighting’ and really lift your subject off the background, while the reflector will bounce the light back on to them giving good illumination.

Andy Newson is a local, professional photographer. For details of courses run by Andy go to http://www.ukphotocourses.co.uk/