SHOOT AND EDIT CREATIVE PORTRAITS
Take a unique approach to portraiture with these easy to follow steps
For this portrait we have chosen an indoor location that has reflective surfaces and neon lights, which will be reflected into the scene by holding a piece of Perspex at an angle in front of the lens. Fairy lights were placed on a shiny surface and spaced out to create bokeh.
It is best to shoot in daylight as we are not using flash, so do take notice of the position of window light and use it to help light your model. Careful placement of white fairy lights helped illuminate our subject’s face here.
A camera that can handle a higher ISO is an advantage due to the low light. A Sony a7 and 50mm lens were used here. A wide-open aperture of 1.8 has enabled the capture of a pleasing bokeh from the various lights. A shutter speed of 250 was used to avoid movement, and ISO was 640.
The neon lights ended up out of sight through the viewfinder due to my chosen composition – they were above the model to the left. I used Perspex held close to my lens to bounce reflections of the neon lights into the image and moved it until I could see the reflections.