Outdoor Portrait
Photography
Creating portraits outdoors can mean pho-
tographing your subject anywhere from a
backyard, to a park, or even a jungle.
Anywhere you take portrait shots that is out-
doors qualifies as an outdoor portrait.
The main difference between outdoor por-
traits and portraits taken indoors and stu-
dios is the use of lighting. For an outdoor
portrait taken during the day, the sun, being
the brightest light source, is used as your
key light. Your Speedlight is used to fill in
the sometimes harsh shadows created by
the bright sun.
I find the best way to use the Speedlight for
outdoor portraits is to set it to the Balanced
Fill-Flash setting. The camera meter takes a
reading of the overall brightness of the
scene and use this reading to provide just
enough light from the flash to fill in the
shadows without looking like flash was
used.
When shooting outdoors paying close atten-
tion to the way the light is falling on your
subject is important. Finding a location that
has good lighting and makes an attractive
background is the key to a successful out-
door portrait.
Chapter 6 ✦Real World Applications 149
6.29 Hunter, Canfield, OH / D70 with Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6 at 300mm. ISO 200,
1/160 sec. at f/5.6 with the built-in Speedlight set to TTL BL.
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