{"id":56,"date":"2013-04-30T15:58:08","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T15:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/?p=56"},"modified":"2020-03-18T21:36:52","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T21:36:52","slug":"portrait-photography-finding-the-front-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/portrait-photography-finding-the-front-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Portrait photography: finding the front light"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In my previous post &#8220;Portrait photography: before and after pictures&#8221;, I showed the difference studio lighting can make in a portrait.<br \/>\nBut the lighting equipment used to take these photographs is quite heavy and cumbersome, and hence it is not always practical to carry along.<br \/>\nThe good news is that it is possible to find natural light settings that are also very flattering to women.<br \/>\nFor example, one needs to look for something to block the light coming from above,\u00a0 because that light produces dark eyes, sometimes referred to as &#8216;racoon eyes&#8217;. The model then can face the direction the light is coming from. This front lighting is similar to the kind of lighting used in the beauty studio lighting set up, and works very well for women.<br \/>\nA few weeks back, I did a portfolio shoot for Beth, who is represented by Superior Model Management in Glasgow. The shoot presented the perfect opportunity to use this kind of light.<br \/>\nWe went to the Meadows park, Edinburgh, and the pic below shows the location where the shoot took place. The roof perfectly blocks the light coming from above, and thus one gets soft light coming from the sides.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_57\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/The-Meadows-Edinburgh-Shelter.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-57 \" src=\"http:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/The-Meadows-Edinburgh-Shelter-800x531.jpg\" alt=\"The Meadows, Edinburgh\" width=\"800\" height=\"531\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/The-Meadows-Edinburgh-Shelter-800x531.jpg 800w, https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/The-Meadows-Edinburgh-Shelter-624x414.jpg 624w, https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/The-Meadows-Edinburgh-Shelter.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-57\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The roof blocks the light coming from above, preventing the &#8216;raccoon&#8217; eyes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I simply had my model Beth face the direction of the light, and the resulting portraits are shown below.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_58\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-58\" style=\"width: 531px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Superior-Model-Management-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-58\" src=\"http:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Superior-Model-Management-1.jpg\" alt=\"Portrait of Model with soft fromt light\" width=\"531\" height=\"800\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-58\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Beth from Superior Model Management, Glasgow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_59\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-59\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Superior-Model-Management-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-59\" src=\"http:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Superior-Model-Management-2-800x531.jpg\" alt=\"Beth from Superior Model Management, Glasgow\" width=\"800\" height=\"531\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Superior-Model-Management-2-800x531.jpg 800w, https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Superior-Model-Management-2-624x414.jpg 624w, https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Superior-Model-Management-2.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-59\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Beth from Superior Model Management, Glasgow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_60\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-60\" style=\"width: 531px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Superior-Model-Management-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-60\" src=\"http:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Superior-Model-Management-3.jpg\" alt=\"Portrait of Model\" width=\"531\" height=\"800\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-60\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Beth from Superior Model Management, Glasgow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This location allows one to take nice portrait photographs on a sunny or cloudy day, which is wonderful since the weather around Edinburgh can be a tad temperamental\u2026.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my previous post &#8220;Portrait photography: before and after pictures&#8221;, I showed the difference studio lighting can make in a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,28,43,19],"tags":[22,29,7,21],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lighting","category-modelling","category-photography-2","category-portrait","tag-lighting-2","tag-model","tag-photography","tag-portrait-2","has-thumbnail"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Superior-Model-Management-2.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Superior-Model-Management-2.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"PhilsBlog","author_link":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/author\/philsblog\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1450,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/1450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philippemonthoux.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}