White Balance Blog

Today I shot a few portraits of Keith Palau, Director of Donor Relations here at Luis Palau. I shot a few in the studio, and just went outside with a flash & diffuser just for a minute; these turned out much more natural and pleasant in my opinion.

Having a strong backlight makes the photo just sparkle, if done right. The basic idea is to get a strong backlight (setting sun, flash, etc.) for interest, then throw lots of light on the subject to compensate. In this case, I used a Westcott Apollo light modifier with an off-camera, hand-held flash. I pushed the flash to +2 stops of extra light (you lose about a stop with the diffuser), and pulled back the camera’s exposure -2 stops. In short, the scene is overbright (matching the bright background), so you reduce exposure to compensate.

I’m still learning this technique from the likes of Tyler Gould and Strobist. There’s a lot of trial and error; there’s many variables. I’m drawn to it for some reason.

As part of any package of “official” portraits these days, I included a square, 512 pixel-square icon for use with social media sites. Need a headshot?

Posted by Allan White in Craft, Portraits