Lifestyle Portrait Session for Julia

Last year, while still in Durban, I decided to work on more natural light photography. I love mixing flash and natural light, but the trend for a lot of lifestyle type shoots is going towards natural light, so I thought it would be a good idea to try improve in that area.

We met on the beach in the morning, winter in Durban is great for shooting on the beach in the morning, the sun doesn’t come up too early, and stays nice and low for a while, so you get that really nice golden light for a bit longer than you would in summer.

We decided on a couple of looks before hand, and a location that had a few options fairly close by. That’s something I like to look for when scouting. If you can find one location, with a couple of different background options within walking distance, it keeps the shoot moving, and allows you to give your model/client a couple different looks in a relatively short time frame.

Using natural light then becomes about how you make these elements work, and positioning yourself and model to use the light.
I like to shot options where I put the sun both behind the model, to get that ethereal early morning glow, and in front of the model, slightly to the side just to get some shape in the shadows.