Photoshoots Studio vs Nature

Photography is an art, the technicalities involved are quite intrinsic and the possibilities limitless. There are a lot of “tricks of the trade” behind all the photoshoots and picture-perfect IG posts that you keep saving for references for your next personal photoshoot. There are myriad self-proclaimed shutterbugs out there, anyone with a decent lens and an IG page is a budding photographer. If you want to take professional pictures and venture more into the aspect of doing it right, then we have a few things you need to take care of while doing photo shoots.

Whether you decide on going for an indoor photoshoot or pick the outdoors depends on what kind of pictures you are planning to take or on the model and what they want out of the shoot.

Outdoor/Nature Photoshoot
Outdoor photography can be challenging but it comes with a huge perk. The natural crisp light! With the sun being your colossal external flash that is all you need to get crisp clear shots without having to worry about the noise and grain. The few techniques include a different set of lenses and saying goodbye to the incessant use of ISO.

The Subject
This mainly includes the ways how you can incorporate the great landscape as well as your subject in the frame. When it comes to doing portraiture in natural light you can try the following guidelines to experiment with the photographs in terms of placement of your subject.

Landscape First
As obvious in this technique, the main focus is the picturesque scenery you have and not your subject. Rather you try to make nature your subject and your human is casually present in the picture.

Portrait First
In this, you use the landscape as the background element, and the focus although is on your subject you set your frame such that the backdrop comes clean and is in sync with the subject.

One trick is using fast lenses with a wide aperture that captures more light but makes sure it is not overpowering the whole theme. Large focal lengths come in handy. Instead of zooming in, which would reduce the clarity of the scene.

Framing
It’s not necessary to keep your subject in the dead center of the frame as always, keep them above the mountain or below or in one corner with a backdrop of a clear sky. You can also try silhouettes of the mountains or trees as guidelines as in outdoors, you don’t get any vertical lines of the walls or frames that you have a set box within which you can shoot. And this gives you more room to experiment. But it is always beneficial to have a grid or guideline which in the case of outdoors can be a tree or the parallel road or the horizon which gives stunning pictures.

Too busy backdrop causes the subject to just mix in abruptly in the frame which does not give many good results.

Posing
Something a little more natural rather than the extensive melodramatic flare that can usually be seen done by the Instagram models. Keep the poses authentic, take some candid pictures, we are not talking about forced ones, let your subject know that you will be capturing them, but they continue with whatever they were doing like roasting marshmallows or setting up camp and you can keep capturing them in your frames.

Even if you are going for poses, keep them a little subtle with a bit of neutral expression which go with the backdrop. Some positive emotions are recommended rather than fierce moods.

Golden Hour
Hands down the best for outdoor shoots, the light is soft and flattering and everything looks subtle and perfect. This is the time the universe flaunts itself in magnificent hues, be it the lights hitting the concrete jungle or peering through a canopy amidst the woods. For outdoor photography, it’s a sin to miss the golden hour shoot.

Indoor Photography
This includes the ones with low lights. You get the opportunity to control the amount and type of light that falls on your subject, the placement, and the flash or even in fact the kind of light.

The Subject
While doing a photoshoot in a studio, one of the variables that you control is your subjects. The hair, makeup, accessories, or their clothes. You can experiment and add all the aesthetics you need. Here the focus mainly lies on the subject and placing them against solid ground or walls with minimalistic elements in the backdrop. Hence studios are really good for portraits or subject photography.

The Lights
Avoid overhead lighting while doing indoor photography. We don’t want the light directly reflecting off of your subject. Rather make the light bounce off another surface and then reach your subject. Use tripods to make your pictures more stabilized. Indoors means low light but not really, the effects of natural light of course cannot be imitated hence instead of using huge halogens and expensive flashes, the effects of the light peering in through cracks in the wooden doors or the window can produce very vibrant photographs. Make sure you use the light and guess what you can also control the amount of light.

One of the challenges in indoor photography is the low light which often leads to photos getting grainy and affecting the quality. Use the windows but you need to look into the placement of your subjects. Low ISO and natural light though the window can do the trick.

The Equipment
Indoors might use a bit more equipment with the addition of flashes and lights. For studio shoots consider lenses with aperture F/2.8 or lower. These are bright lenses and are quite useful for low light photography. The colors can be saturated hence use an external flash. Instead of zooming in, use a shorter focal length and move towards the subject. If you have to use a higher ISO for, convert noisy images to black and white.

Also read: May magazine of 2019