Natural light portraits

I shot these on an overcast day using natural light only. I'd like people to share some of their best natural light shots.

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I love that first shot. It's simply wonderful

Overcast day is the way to go and you proved it!

You nailed that first shot,well done!

The first and third shot look great! Only thing i see is in the second shot. It seems to be underexposed. Great shots overall

Is it just me or does anyone else see a weird halo looking thing around the edge of her body in number 1 a little but you can see it better in the last one.

Really like the shots tho. Maybe something you did in PP?

James P wrote in post #11418892
I love that first shot. It's simply wonderful

Cannot argue with this at all. The lighting is great and the skin tones with red dress contrasting the yellow flowers is awesome!

Nicholas, I don't see what you mean, unless you're looking at her necklace? or maybe some web compression. Thanks for the comments, everyone.

The first image is tops. The skin is just a tad overprocessed for my taste but that's very minor. Great series.

Love all your photos! but #1 is my fav!

They are all good shots, but the first one is outstanding.

Overcast days are the best for outdoor portraiture but the subject must be posed under the canopy of a forest or if the subject is not under a canopy you need to use a silver reflector or an off camera flash because your subject will have raccoon eyes as evidenced in all of the above shots except for image # 2.

In my shots below the senior girl is under the canopy of a large forest. The leaves of the trees above her head stop the overhead light from creating shadows in her eye sockets. The bride was out in the open so I used an off camera flash at camera left to remove the raccoon eyes.

Benji

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I really like one, the glow effect works in that one.
Nothing wrong with subtle raccoon eyes in natural light, it looks....well....natur​al .

Benji I agree with your point that getting rid of the racoon eyes is desirable, but have to chuckle a bit that in your second example...she has racoon eyes....I am sure you have tons of better examples .

Also if you are on on overcast day and you are shooting in a green forest with canopy, you will have to deal with "green death" light. Personally I think that is the worst light there is.....although I know a lot of people just starting out get steered there....then they come on here and ask how to make their pictures less dull and how to get their skin tones correct.

"Green death light" is caused by the overhead light (usually sunshine) filtering through the green leaves and tinting the light green. This happens when the image maker takes his or her subject way back under the canopy like 30 or 40 feet where they are completely surrounded by leaves. I stay out on the edge of the forest where the light is "white" because the only leaves are above her head and not surrounding her on all sides. I also shoot a gray card for perfect white balance. I've included a shot of my outdoor studio showing the edge of the forest. The red dot is one of my favorite spots to use, and as you can see it is only about six feet back under the edge.

While it does appear that the bride has raccoon eyes she actually has deep set eyes (she is Russian) and not raccoon eyes. The easiest way to tell the difference is how large the area of darkness is around the eyes. If it is large and soft then it is raccoon eyes. If the dark area is small and defined and just around the eyeball it is deep set eyes.

I seldom use off camera flash as I prefer a silver reflector but I will take your suggestion and post another exapmle of off camera flash used to remove raccoon eyes.

Benji

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