How to Capture Awesome Portraits on Location

Find an interesting location

And an awesome model…

The shot above was taken in the Algarve. The biggest challenge with this shoot was the strong sunlight. Here the use of a reflector or a speedlite fill in flash (in HSS mode) to soften the shadows can help a lot. Some people like to use a gold reflector to add warmth to the image. I prefer to use white or silver & then warm the image up in post processing if I think it needs it.

Although this image was shot at f f2.8, the background still wasn’t blurred enough for my liking so I added a little additional Gaussian blur in post processing.

Click on any of the thumbnails below to see the full sized image

This shot was taken in the shadow of the cliffs which has given a much softer, more even light. I found the piece of old driftwood on the beach & thought that it created a  nice counterpoint to the model.

Again shot in strong sunlight, but in this instance I wasn’t able to use a reflector or off camera flash as I was actually kneeling in the sea.

Look for negative space.

Crumbling plaster or brickwork, and graffiti make great counterpoints when shooting models.

Look for mirrored shapes or shadows.

Contrasting colours also make for strong images.