How to Light an Outdoor Portrait With Natural Light and Flash

Learning flash can feel daunting, but once you get the basics down, you will find that you can tackle a much wider range of creative needs. One of those fundamental skills is balancing flash and natural light, and this excellent video tutorial will show you the ins and out of doing that to create a compelling portrait. 

Coming to you from Jiggie Alejandrino, this awesome video tutorial will show you how to shoot portraits with a balance of natural light and flash. As you will see, placing the sun behind your subjects is a classic look, creating a warm and dramatic image. The problem with using only natural light is that in order to avoid blowing out the sun, you need to significantly underexpose your subjects, which can seriously degrade image quality when you adjust them in post. Adding a bit of flash on your subjects can help you balance the exposure in camera, increasing the overall quality of the image. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Alejandrino. 

If you would like to continue learning about how to light a portrait, be sure to check out "Illuminating The Face: Lighting for Headshots and Portraits With Peter Hurley!"

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Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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