Digital Camera World - UK (2019-12)

Camera settings

During shooting, set your camera

to Aperture Priority or Manual,

and open the aperture to the

widest setting. As I had the focal

length set to 55mm (meaning

the aperture was reading f/5.6),

I increased the ISO to 800 to

compensate. You ideally want

to keep your shutter speed below

1/200 sec (ours was set to 1/500

sec) to get sharp results.

Add some flare

At the editing stage, I made some basic adjustments in Lightroom CC.

I then took the image over to Photoshop and added a new layer. We

chose Filter > Render > Lens Flare... In the resulting dialog box, you

can position the lens flare and increase or decrease the amount of

light. If your image is black-and-white, you’ll need to add a Black &

White Adjustment Layer above the lens flare layer. Finally, use the

Spot Healing Brush or the Clone Tool to touch up any skin blemishes.

On the shoot

A reflector placed pointing up will help to bring some

light back into the shadows on the face. Get your

model to hold it if you don’t have an extra pair of hands

to help. When you shoot winter portraits on location,

things to look out for are keeping the eyes sharp and

ensuring there is nothing distracting (like a tree

branch) coming out behind your model’s head.

Cla

ire

Gi

llo

n those crisp and cold winter

days when the sun is pouring

through the trees in soft

golden streaks, it is the

perfect opportunity to capture

a winter portrait. For this photo shoot, the

model Bianca was dressed in some winter

coats and accessories, which adds to that

overall final winter look and feel. If your model

dresses up warm as well, there is the added

bonus that they don’t look freezing in the photo!

You may think that you need lots of fancy

equipment and accessories to get professional-

looking results like this, but this image was shot

using a kit lens on a crop-sensor camera, aided

by a reflector. One of the biggest disadvantages

of using the kit lens is its limitations in opening

up the aperture: this lens has a variable setting

between f/3.5-f/5.6, depending on where

you have the focal length set. To ensure our

background blurred nicely around Bianca,

I made sure she was standing well away from

the bushes behind her, to maintain separation.

Although it’s great if you can capture a

stylised lens flare effect in-camera, it isn’t

always possible at the scene. I processed the

image in Lightroom to get the overall look and

feel, then added a lens flare filter in Photoshop.

O

Add some

winter flare

Claire Gillo shows you

how you can bring some

atmosphere and flare to

your winter portraits

3 | PORTRAITS

f/5.6

1/500

sec

ISO

800

22 DIGITAL CAMERA^ DECEMBER 2019 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com