Portrait by window light

It's amazing how quickly time passes but we are finding ourselves at the final week of the class. All work has to be turned in by Saturday evening, July 13 as the deadline for my submission of grades is Sunday. That's one day earlier than usual this week.

The main point of the portrait assignment is to be able to see how the light falls on the face when it comes from a broad diffuse source like a window to the open sky. It's very important not to shoot into the window and silhouette your subject. Move your shoulder against the same wall the window is on and move your subject back from the window a couple of feet. Turn their head and body so that the light falls on the front of the face. Try to have a darker background and try to have your subject wearing dark clothing and the portrait will be a success.

Do a Google image search for "window light portrait" and take a look at some examples of how the camera was held for framing the shot, where the person was standing relative to the window, and where the position of the photographer was.

You can do your pets but it's much much harder to get it right because they don't follow direction so well. You can also use this week to do any makeup posting in order to have all the images you need for your final grade. Remember there are five main projects… A minimum of six excellent images per project and more like 10 is what's required.

Have fun with this.