Outdoor Portrait Tips
With or Without a Flash

Outdoor portrait tips combine the best of portrait tips with how to take the best outdoor pictures. We have previously covered the advantages of using a flash (either on-camera, or external), the benefits of using a fill-flash, and how to adjust for different lighting situations in the photography lighting pages.

But what do you do if you don't have an external flash? And, there are sometimes going to be situations where it doesn't matter whether you have a flash or not. Here are two challenging situations and the outdoor portrait tips to deal with them.

Beware of High Contrast Situations

Several outdoor portrait tips can be demonstrated with this image. First, there is the basic photographic problem of the white chairs located in the upper left of the frame. They are white and too bright, since they are in direct sunlight.

The faces of the flower girls are in shade. When combining two such extreme contrast situations in one photography, your camera has difficulty creating a happy medium.

Therefore, this cute photograph is doomed, unless the chairs in the upper left can be partially cropped out, or a lot of time is spent with your photo-editing software.

In addition, there is this strong psychological problem...

When looking at most photos, your attention will be drawn to the bright areas. Therefore, unusually bright areas are quite distracting and often take attention away from your primary subject.

Now, brace yourself. Here is one of those outdoor portrait tips that is just slightly technical: If your camera has a histogram, refer to it before the shot (ideally), or at least, after the shot. If a high-contrast situation is indicated, re-position the subjects so that all of them are either in the shade or in mild sunlight, and then re-compose the shot.

Watch the Background

When that's the case, one of the key outdoor portrait tips is to make sure the background compliments, rather than detracts, from your subject.

How? Colors should compliment, not clash. If your subject is wearing a bright orange top, don't pose them in front of a bright red fire truck.

Watch out for objects "sticking out of people’s heads" (this is one of those outdoor portrait tips that should be ignored when intentionally creating humorous photos).

After your subject is posed how and where you want them, take the time to study the background. For example, I doubt if this golfer liked a tree growing out of his head.

Often an "optimal point" can be taken advantage of simply by repositioning the camera in line with a properly posed subject and an ideal background.