I explained in two previous blog posts, “Portrait photography: finding the front light” and “Portrait photography: finding the back light” how to find natural lighting conditions that are flattering for portraits of women.
But sometimes one has to place the subject a certain way to get a pleasing background, but the natural light falling on her isn’t optimal. And when the subject is oriented such that the natural light falling on her is optimal, there may be distracting elements in the background. In such a situation, one can go with the best composition of the photograph and ‘fix’ the lighting by adding some external light source.
In the photograph below, I really wanted to compose the photograph with the leading lines to the model’s face. But the light was coming from the side and giving unflattering shadows on her face. So I added a soft light source (a small flash in an umbrella) to fill in the shadows on her face and give a much more pleasing portrait.
And in the two following photographs, I really wanted to use the green door to frame my model. It gave a pleasing composition to the photograph. But the natural light falling on her face didn’t do her justice. So I again added the same soft light source as above to ‘fix’ the light. This way I could get the composition I wanted and good light on the model’s face.
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