Photography Lesson in Light - Malibu Model

When it comes to photography, light is everything. We have all heard this, but the bigger question is what does that really mean? For me it starts with a vision of what looks good to my eye; that doesn't answer the question.

I get inspired by the ambient light first (natural light). Ambient light can be any continuous light source: sun, candle, neon sign, etc. You can use that light as your main light source on your subject or a background/accent light. Let's dive into some examples from a recent shoot I had with a model in Malibu. There's a big mix of light that was available and light that I added from strobes I was carrying.

Also, don't forget your can manipulate natural light with a reflector or black reflector (negative fill). It's not complicated but it does take some time to be able to "see" the light.

How did I get this shot? We had finished shooting on the beach after the sun went down, the light emitting from my car hit the model and I just felt it would be a special image. The light was warm, hard and broad.

The light that struck me interesting was from the sun behind the model. You have to play with exposure to get what you want. Stop and think about your camera settings before you dive into this type of shooting. It takes some experimenting.

This was taken after the sun had already gone down. The ambient light was warm and the remaining available light started to get harder. It works.

This is the late afternoon sunlight hitting the model. It's a hard light and it's warm. Position the model in what your eyes see as the most flattering for the shot. I had 360 degrees to work with...see how the light falls off the other cheek into darkness? That was intentional.

This was taken around noon and the ambient light was hard. So I decided to kill it completely and hit the model with a lot of power. When you kill ambient light mid-day you need a lot of power, and in doing so you can knock down the ambient light like in this case by 2-3 stops. I used a 35" octabox right on the model from above 45 degrees.

shutter speed 1/250
aperture 2.0 (I had a ND filter...without the ND this would have been f16)

Get it?

Pure natural light at sunset. It was perfect.

More of that car light. No control of the ambient light in this case...it's a continuous light source and you have one exposure in this case. If the light had been from my strobe I would have had complete control over the ambient.

Natural light but taken from a different angle than from the one up a few images.

Again, that hard light from the late afternoon sun. I can rock any light you throw at me and you can too!