Natural light photoshoot

As many of you know I love to use flash on location, but what many don’t realize is that I love to just go out with a model with one camera and lens, in this case the Canon 5D MKII and Canon 70-200f2.8 IS L and nothing more except the sun. I do have to add that I mostly do this with models who already have a great portfolio from me and don’t really need something because with natural light only there always is a risc that things don’t turn out the way you want, however to be honest when you know how to search for the light in 99% of the cases the series will turn out great.

My model for this shoot was Roosmarijn.
I worked for a long time with Roosmarijn and a lot of images in my portfolio are from our collaborations, she recently picked up photography herself. We kept in contact and the idea grew to do a quick session in natural light, just having fun and shooting with nothing but the sun.

My approach
Shooting with just the sun takes some thinking before the shoot.
Although I believe that there are no periods were you can’t shoot, as long as you find the correct angles there should be images everywhere at every moment of the day, however in real life it’s true that the morning light and evening light simply put are best. So we decided to start at 9:00AM in the morning (seeing that I still experience some jetlag this was a good idea, although at the morning itself I did not think so), as location we choose some locations close to our studio were I love to go for shoots. The nice thing about our area is that we have lots of options that also chances a lot, not only due to the seasons but also because there is constant work done around the locations, so there is always something new to shoot or a new interesting angle.

The first thing I try to do is find the correct angle for the sun. I love backlit scenes and when the contrast is not yet that high you can get away without using fill in flash or reflectors (see the next shots). But I also love to find good color combinations, in this session I loved the browns that complemented the clothing the model wears and also her skin tone of course.

As you can see in these shots I used backlight and side light, something I also love to use in the studio, shooting with this kind of light gives the images a nice feel and depth. You can also choose for straight on sunlight, but for me that often gives the images a too flat appearance which I don’t like in most occasions.

Planning the shoot
Often forgotten by starting photographers is the planning of the shoot.
Always remember that combinations of colors and the contrast between the model and the surrounding should fit.
This means it can give a contrast between the model and the background or let the model become one with the surroundings. I love to use both as you can see in my work, but for this session we choose to select clothing that made the model more part of the location.

Moving around
Some locations are great because you can move just small distances and have several different options, which I love. I often teach my workshops at the location you see in the images you have seen so far, simply put all locations are within 10 seconds from each other and especially for workshops and shoots that have less time this kind of locations are great, you can get many different looks in a very short time. For example the whole series you see in this blog post took less than 90 minutes to shoot, including travel time and changing clothes.

For the final shot we changed location to a small lake on the way back to the studio, for people living in Emmeloord “Castelijnse plas”.
The nice thing about that location is that you have within walking distance small beaches but also loads of trees in different configurations, we ended up with this shot which maybe is my favorite of this shoot. The light was already getting a bit harscher but because this is a relatively shielded location we could still pull it off without fill in light or reflector use.

What to look for
Make sure you know the location.
Make sure you do bring reflectors and strobes just to be sure.
Check the clothing before hand so you will have something that will work on the location.
Realize that outside locations change during the seasons.
Before the shoot check your locations, some locations will change too much or be closed off.

Any questions feel free to ask.