The late afternoon sunlight is coming from the side, not directly overhead. It models the face, giving it dimension without casting distracting and unflattering harshly contrasting shadows.
There is a catchlight in both eyes, bringing the subject to life in a lifeless medium. The eyes need to be sharpened though.
The depth of field keeps the face in focus while the background is completely blurred, though it is still recognizeable as an outdoor shot.
alright, but what if you really get caught up in a situation where you are just going to be shooting in bright sun? How do you do this? i was trying to follow a certain tutorial/method for doing this and turning the model's back to the sun and use flash on the front. this did not work out for me my first try. it has been pointed out to me what i did wrong other than waiting for the lighting to be right. I have a HD filter for my lenses, a diffuser, and was i went back and re-read the tutorial and realized that i did not meter for my ambient light correctly before i turned on my flash. i know that doing these things would make my pics better next time, but if you have a method, i am definitely open for suggestions.
thanks for the example with your son. he looks about the same age as mine. 17 or 18?
If I find light is flat in my photos, I copy and layer them in soft light mode in a photo editing progrom to boost contrast, sliding the opacity until I like it. Heavy cloud cover or shade can flatten features. It's important to have dimension.
My family is very fair-skinned and color photos can make us look too pinkish, so it's fun to play with b&w conversions and sepia toning.
I'm not a fan of the first one... not sure about his expression and I think the B&W conversion is a little flat.
2nd one I like the pose... looking out of frame and back across...
Both pics the focus point seems to be off... especially the 2nd one where the focus point lands on the hair at the back of his head (above his right ear) It almost catches the back eye but a portrait like this the front eye really needs to be the point of sharpest focus.
