Front-Lit Photography

Hopefully, you have all been keeping an eye out for those beautiful, backlit fall landscapes.  I love this time of year - especially for that reason.  Not only are there stunning fall colors everywhere you look, but bushes and trees have so much more to offer than just breathtaking leaves.  They are havens for all sorts of textured nuts and colorful berries.  

To capture these images, you need a different type of lighting.  Front-lit lighting works so much better when your goal is to highlight the shape, form, and color of berries against their leafy backdrops.  The following image was taken with the sun shining directly on the berries - a front lit image.

I love how the bright fall berries stand out among the twigs and greenery in the background.  The front lighting seems to make the berries burst with color.  That's the beauty of front-lighting - which can also work wonders for portrait photography as seen in the image below.

Of all places, I discovered this lighting in the back of our Tahoe that was parked inside our open, north-facing garage.  I had been looking for this angelic light for so long.  Once I saw it, I quickly changed my daughter into a pretty dress, grabbed my camera and came up with this image - which has quickly become one of my all time favorites.

Believe it or not, you can find this type of lighting indoors as well.  Look for a north facing window, place your subject several feet in front of the window - with their faces pointed toward the light (the window).  Place yourself (with camera in hand) right in front of the window, between the window and your subject.  This is a great way to practice front-lighting your subject.  The image below was taken using this technique.

The beauty of available light is that you don't have to carry around heavy equipment.  The down-side is that you are often at the mercy of the weather.  When is the best time to photograph outdoors?  The hour after sunrise and the hour right before sunset are the optimal times.  If you can not photograph during those times, you'll have to look for open shade.

What is open shade, and where do you find it?  Look for areas just outside of direct sunlight.  Shaded areas work well as long as you find a spot where the sunlight bounces in to fill the space with light.  Once you find a shaded area, simply place your subject just inside the shaded area and face them toward the direction of the sun.  Your goal is to let the sun bounce off the ground just in front of your subject filling their face with lovely light.  Under awnings, just inside an open doorway, alleyways, and under the shade of a building work well too.  Just make sure that the sun is bouncing toward the shaded area.

This last image shows an image front-lit with direct sunlight.  The harsh lighting here actually works to our advantage filling the beads with color and sparkle.  The same harsh, direct lighting used on a person would fill your subject's face with ugly shadows.  It works well on this stepping stone though.  

Next up we'll cover side-lighting.