Photography Lighting Examples

Some Sample Images From Tips on Child Photography

Photography Lighting Examples - Reflector

We were on location with Matt's children for this shoot however, Matt wanted a portrait of himself. I was many miles away from home and on the beautiful Tarifa Beach in Southern Spain. We had been shooting on the beach with his children but needed respite from the sun.

We moved slightly inland and camped under the canopy of some trees for a while and I noticed the excellent light.

There were a few shadows across Matt's face so I unfolded the Lastolite reflector and aimed it at him from one side. 

This shot was totally natural lighting with a little help. Matt was deep in the shadows from the trees in order to give a natural looking background and diffused light.

The results are great and coupled with a shallow depth of field, we were more than happy with the shots taken here.

I used a large reflector (held by Matt's kids) to direct the sunlight from the sun coming through the canopy above, directly onto Matt. I would highly recommend getting a reflector or two and keep them with you on shoots. Look for a Lastolite one that has 2 or 3 different reflective coverings (silver, white, gold etc).

Using a reflector meant I could have the sunlight exactly where "I" wanted it. On Matt but not the background. Whatever type of photography you do, a decent reflector is an invaluable piece of kit.

Fill in Flash

For this next shot, I placed Amber with the sun directly behind in broad daylight. In order to darken the background I used a shutter speed of 500th/sec with an aperture of f4.5. The ISO was 100. Click for larger images.

The flash was set to ETTL (full auto) and I adjusted the aperture to give a relatively high shutter speed. This was to freeze the action in the jumping shot. Remember, most flashguns need a shutter speed of 250th/sec or LOWER to work correctly. Therefore, in this instance I had to use Canon's high speed flash setting.

You can clearly see that even though darkened, the sun is back-lighting Amber's hair nicely. The flash had lit her face perfectly and you can see the highlights from the speedlight in her eyes. This can be a great way of effectively turning day into night so why not have a play yourself?

Backlight Using Off Camera Flash

Emily's mum had spent hours getting her hair just right so I wanted to show it off a little. The main lighting was a single large softbox just behind and slightly above myself. To get the back-lighting effect, I placed my flashgun (Sigma EF-500 DG Super at the time) behind Emily on the floor. I set it to "slave" mode which enables the flash to fire in sync with the main lights WITHOUT the need for cables.

A sensor on the flashgun triggers the flash the INSTANT the main light hits it. A fantastic piece of kit.

Studio Lights

This was taken in our double garage during the daytime. All windows were blacked out to make the best use of the studio lights. 2 lights of equal power (500w) were used. One in front of the kids and to my right (the kids' left). The other was placed behind and to their left at about 45 degrees. One had the softbox on, and the other was fired through a luminescent brolly.

You can see that a simple, 2 light set up works a treat is placed correctly. Camera settings were: