By The Pool – Portrait Photography

Portrait Photography is so versatile it never stops to amaze me how much variation can come out of one portrait session and how much the model is alternating the way you photograph. Accoridng to me, a good photographer needs to listen and interpret your model’s style, look as well as personality, in order to make the portrait photo shoot tailored to them and the images to reflect their personal style. This south London portrait shoot in Clapham Common was done with a fashion flare and I named it “By The Pool” as I am terribly missing the sunshine that has been absent for too long now…

Fashion portrait photography is an exciting way to mix in traditional portrait photography with a fashion modelling take and styling, something I know is very popular with girls at the moment. For this portrait photo shoot me and my model Emma headed out to the local park of Clapham Common in south London and with the rain, tried to achieve a summery look to our pictures. Originally I wanted to do a sunset shoot, but by the time we headed out it was raining with dark clouds hanging over us. So no choice but to seek out the brightest, most colourful location we could find and shoot some fashion portraits in the quickly fading light!

For the photography interested I can take you though a few tips when shooting in natural light and mostly in outdoor locations. If you are struggling to find a good backdrop for your pictures, try to locate a place with an unusual colour, reflections or anything else that can make the image stand out. For our By The Pool session, we found a bright blue, half-empty pool that we decided to use. I wanted to crop out the traffic, passers by and fill the frame with the blur colour, so shot from above and had Emma kneeling down to avoid disturbance in the background of the image.

When shooting in low light, try to use natural reflectors and open spaces that will give you maximum light. For strong sunshine it is usually most advantageous to turn your model so she has the back against the sun and use a reflector, fill in flash or open aperture to create light on her face. Photographing someone standing towards the sun just gives squinty eyes and harsh shadows on their face.

A word of advice when shooting against brightly coloured surfaces – remember that light bounces and tints by the surface your model are closest to. Notice the colour cast in the image below as the light throws back blue colour from the pool into her face. In these images I chose to have it that way as it contributed to the colour flare and style of the shoot, but be aware so you don’t have to spend hours in post processing if it is unwelcome!

You can view my full portrait portfolio here: Cecelina Photography Portrait portfolio.

Model portfolio portraits – Fashion Style Portrait Photography – Portrait Photographer South London