The kind of light being used can make a real difference to portrait. Using natural or photographic lighting with or without reflectors, diffusers, filters etc. should be considered when setting up for the shoot.
Michael Freeman’s book ‘Light and lighting’ from the ‘Digital Photography Expert’ series, has sections on ‘Daylight lighting’ where the height and direction of the sun, haze, using clouds as diffusers / reflectors, dawn / dusk, fog etc. are considered; ‘Available artificial lighting’ where the different types of incandescent, fluorescent and vapour discharge lights are discussed; ‘Photographic lighting’ which looks at on camera flash, mains flash, various types of studio lighting, lighting supports, reflectors and diffusers, effects lighting etc. Using this with two of his other books:
‘The Complete Guide to Light & Lighting in Digital Photography’ which looks at the above items in more detail but includes another section - ‘The craft of lighting’ which is very useful when looking at the positioning of lights, use of flash fill and reflectors, backlighting, multiple light sources, softening / sharpening light etc.
‘Photographing people’ from the ‘Digital Photography Expert’ series’ from which a great deal of the text for this course is derived and has a wealth of suggestions and tips relating to the sections in the previous two.
I’ve again looked at John Hedgecoe’s ‘Complete guide to photography’ which suggests lighting conditions for the ‘people’ section.
I don’t have any studio lighting and at this stage I’m not convinced it would be a good investment (that may change), but I do have a digital flash which can be used in remote ‘commander’ mode and has an accessory pack which includes a mini beauty dish with different deflectors, honeycombs and gels and diffuser dome which I may use to enhance existing lighting.
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