In this clip we are going to look at outdoor portrait photography. We are going to look

at some common mistakes particularly relating to light and background.

So were in the park. It’s the middle of the day. It's hot and above all it’s very

very sunny. And we're looking at the best possible spot to shoot some portraits.

So we’ve chosen to position our subject out in the open. We’ve got a nice tree in

the background but straight away we confront a quite obvious problem. It’s too sunny.

Our subject is squinting at the camera. Even if she can manage to keep her eyes open we

are going to get some nasty dark shadows around her eyes. So clearly facing into the sun on

a bright sunny day like this is really not going to work.

So instead we are going to head into some shade. We’re heading into the really deep

shade. And in this instance our subject has no problem keeping her eyes open. But it’s

really a bit too dark. We've had to raise the ISO from 100 to 400. This isn't a disaster

but it does mean a bit more noise in the image. The pictures aren't too bad but the light

is a little bit flat and on a bright sunny day like today, surely we can find a spot

where the light is a bit more dynamic.

Now we are still in the shade but we're on the edge of the shade which means we still

have lots of light. Here we face a different issue: the background is much brighter than

our subject. That means that while she looks great, the background is really burnt out.

So again we are looking for a spot in the shade but on the edge of the shade so there's

lots of bright indirect natural light. And here we’ve got lots of shady trees which

make a much better background. So all looking good except, uh-oh, someone is on the phone

in the background. Now it’s very easy when shooting portraits to concentrate on the subject

and not notice what's going on behind the subject.

Finally we’ve found a spot where the subject is bathed in that beautiful indirect sunlight.

She’s not squinting we’ve got an attractive background that doesn't distract from the

portrait subject.

So I hope this clip was useful in understanding the basics of light and background when shooting

outdoor portraits.

So thanks for watching and please feel free to leave a comment or take a look at some

of the other clips series.