How is this photographer lighting her images for such a clean look...(example)

I have been looking at Pinkletoes blog (Michele Anderson) and love the clean and uniform lighting she achieves, specially with family shoots (where the subjects are not trained models)

Though she seems to rely a lot on ambient light, I am sure in a lot of her shots she is mixing flash as well - and she manages to get such even and clean exposures specially on the people - I have seen many photographers here achieve such similar look - anyone care to share their opinions on the lighting?

Indoor images

Outdoor Images

It just looks like natural cloudy day light to me.

I'm sure there was also a bit of post done, but nothing major.

I would suggest quite a bit of PP work - especially their eyes as this looks overcooked to me.

They are striking but not so naturale!

You can do the same thing if you completely disregard your highlights. It's pretty common actually.

cdifoto wrote in post #16582505
You can do the same thing if you completely disregard your highlights. It's pretty common actually.

I was thinking nearly his exact thing. Ive been trying to ignore my highlights lately myself.

I'd say before any of the lighting and editing the most striking things are the composition and smart clothes the family are wearing coupled with some very clever use of background locations and colours to make that kind of lighting and editing work in the first place.

Giant windows...

Overcast sky, large windows, lots of shadow slider in Lightroom.
And maybe a big shoot through umbrellas for some of the head shots.

And ambient exposure is always 0 or a little plus EC and fill is within a stop as well.

white walls, white furnitures, and a lot of big opening ... windows, sliding doors, etc

you can actually get this pics even using the aperture mode and even P mode

Thanks for your responses, guys. Either she chooses her location very carefully for even lighting or she uses a speedlight to lower the highlight:shadow ration, but either way, I love her work. I think she charges pretty heavily for her images and the clients pay happily.

::Indoor::
Big open windows with north light or overcast day with perhaps some flash fill and good natural post processing…..
::Outdoor::
Overcast skies with great fill and good lens selection along with good natural post processing.

If you look thru her blog, you will notice a lot of her work is VERY consistent. I would bet that this is due to her knowing her limits to natural light. Most so call "Natural Light" photographers are re-active to a lighting situation -vs- being pro-active. Notice that you picked ALL images that were shot on overcast days and most of her work "that she shows" were shot on overcast days. There are virtually no images shown on bright sunny days unless it's at dusk or once the sun has already gone down. So does she know ahead of time (weeks or days) what days will be sunny and what days will be overcast? Of course she doesn't, but what she does do is ONLY SHOW you her best work which just happens to be on overcast days. So, not only does she know how to control her lighting (on overcast days) but she tops that off with proper natural post processing as well as only knowing to show her best work that she has shot, not every work that she shoots…..

The Loft Studios wrote in post #16585577
::Indoor::
Big open windows with north light or overcast day with perhaps some flash fill and good natural post processing…..
::Outdoor::
Overcast skies with great fill and good lens selection along with good natural post processing.

If you look thru her blog, you will notice a lot of her work is VERY consistent. I would bet that this is due to her knowing her limits to natural light. Most so call "Natural Light" photographers are re-active to a lighting situation -vs- being pro-active. Notice that you picked ALL images that were shot on overcast days and most of her work "that she shows" were shot on overcast days. There are virtually no images shown on bright sunny days unless it's at dusk or once the sun has already gone down. So does she know ahead of time (weeks or days) what days will be sunny and what days will be overcast? Of course she doesn't, but what she does do is ONLY SHOW you her best work which just happens to be on overcast days. So, not only does she know how to control her lighting (on overcast days) but she tops that off with proper natural post processing as well as only knowing to show her best work that she has shot, not every work that she shoots…..

Flip side being that prospective clients don't get to see how she handles the sun.

Very true.....

If you check out the street pavement around the little girls' feet where she is out in the street and her hair looks like she was jumping up and down, you can almost see where the street was burned in but around her feet all is white, no burning. At least that is my take on it.

who are we kidding? ....... It's the Nikon camera she is using that makes her take bomb pictures.