The Flash Book

Outdoor Portrait Workflow

STEP ONE: Put Their Back to the Sun

Start by positioning your subject, so the sun is behind them (the added benefit of this is that the sun acts as a second light, or a hair light, if you will). We don't want the sun to light them, we just want it to light the background, and the back of their head and shoulders and such—we want our flash to be the thing that lights our subject. By the way, the sun doesn't need to be directly behind them (in fact, it's probably better if it isn't). It can be way off to the side, but still behind them, like it is here, where the sun is way off to the right of our subject (our right, her ...