The Benefits of Outdoor Family Photography
The Simplest, Best Portrait Light
Candid available-light photographers spend their lives looking for ‘Open Shade.’ This is the easiest light to work with outdoors for family photography. It’s flattering and works in deepest of Urban Jungles, like Hong Kong, as well as on a beach in Phuket.
‘Open Shade’ is the light found in outdoor areas with a high ambient light level but no direct sun.
There should be no shadows. Quite often, open shade and downright harsh unusable light exist within a few meters of each other. All it takes is to step out of the sunlight and into the shade of a building, a tree or any large object. Unless you are in the middle of a field or on a beach, there is always open shade nearby. And it’s free. (One of the benefits of outdoor photoshoots.)
I spent years film production, on large sound stages and remote locations. It could take one or two dozen crew to replicate the look of perfect soft open-shade. Learn to find it.
Disneyland Hotel, Hong Kong
Ultimately what you are looking for at this point is to have even light across the face. Keep moving your subject around until you have no ‘hot spots’ or deep shadows on the face. Check the eyes for even illumination. In the photo below, you can see the boy on the right is sitting in perfect open shade while his brother is sitting in the harsh direct sun. Perfect light and unusable light can be this close together when taking outdoor family photos.
In family photography we are trying to make people look good, that’s the point. Kids are easy, but anyone over, say, 25, needs the benefit of perfect open-shade.
Learning camera settings takes a few weeks or months at the most. You can spend your life learning about light.
I will be going deeper on this subject in future posts. During the pandemic, I wrote the ultimate guide to kids photography for parents: Never Say Cheese: How to Take Great Photos of Your Kids (And Why You Should).
I will be using my book for many of these blog posts, it’s all you need to become completely competent so you can photograph your own children.
