Merrickville Sunset Portraits
Late spring I decided to take a friend of mine into Merrickville and shoot some portraits with her. It was kind of a last minute thing, but I had a theme in mind, and I hoped she would have a “country” looking dress we could use. Crystal went above and beyond and found a cowboy hat and matching boots. We stole my husbands guitar and low and behold we had a themed session on our hands.
What I really wanted is to get some of the apple blossoms involved, but we were at the tail end of the blooms and only a few suitable tree’s were found. No matter, we drove the scenic path from Burritts Rapids to Merrickville screeching the car to a halt everytime I saw a bit of real-estate I liked. We started out with the sun still fairly high in the sky, and ended at sunset. You will be able to see the different looks that can be acheived at different periods of the golden hour. For those of you that are not aware, the hour just before the sun sets (referred to by photographers as golden hour) is by far the most flattering time to shoot portraits.
I also wanted to practice my off camera flash skills for this session. Off camera flash is done just the way it sounds, by taking the flash off the camera and putting it on a stand or stable object. Why would one do this? By taking the flash off of the camera and placing it adjacent or beside the subject instead of directly straight on the subject, it creates depth and interest. Your subject can sometimes look a bit flat when the flash is used straight on, this allows the photographer to get more creative and achieve different looks.
As the sun set more and more, having the flash on Crystal allowed me to light her while maintaining the beautiful colours of the sunset behind her. Without the flash, I would have had to expose for her skin (so she wouldn’t be in silhouette) and we would of lost all of those rich colours.
I love doing creative, personal one-on-one portrait sessions, if you are interested in working with me to acheive one of a kind portraits contact me via facebook or on my website here.
You can change the mood of a photo also by changing the image to black and white. I opted for a high contrast black and white look.
To show you the difference flash or no flash makes, see these three photos below all taken within a few minutes of each other. Photo 1 is all natural light, notice how bright the back ground is. Photo 2 is with a stronger flash, which illuminates the subject more, but leaves the background darker. Photo 3 is taken with a more even flash to balance subject and background. All achieve a different look and feel.
The Rich colours of the sunset can be seen here by using flash to illuminate the subject. If flash was not used, you would not be able to see the background colours so clearly (unless your subject remained dark also)
I love this gorgeous profile picture of Crystal.
