Environmental Portraiture: Tell Your Subject’s Story and Create Dynamic Portraits with One Bag of Gear

Adding Light with Speedlights

Available light is my first preference when photographing people in their own environments. Yet it isn’t always perfect. Sometimes the scene needs a little help. This is usually accomplished by adding light to a person’s face using speedlights. The viewer will look to the brightest spot in the image first; therefore, it’s nice if the brightest spot is the subject’s face.

I like to use a Nikon speedlight as a master flash, or you can use a Nikon SU-4 slave flash controller or a PocketWizard MiniTT1 Radio Slave Transmitter to trigger the flash. I am talking Nikon here, but there are many other ways to trigger remote flashes on any camera system. What it comes down to is that you can use any wireless system and make ...