I need some help with lighting my subjects. Any advice is great since I am such a novice. Thanks
These are a couple that I have taken. In the first one I like how it backlights her hair, but hate how it misses her face. Please help.
Yep, fill flash. Amazingly useful when outdoors even in bright sunlight which seems a bit counterintuitive at first. But any time you have strong light in the background you'll rarely be able to properly expose the background and subject perfectly and most of the time it's the background that gets exposed properly leaving the subject underexposed. But a fill flash can help you get the background exposed properly while throwing just enough added light on the subject to help it balance out.
you could try getting a reflector...which is just a white fold out thing that you hold under them, and that reflects the light onto their face...even a white pillowcase or sheet would work...or you can buy them from ebay...they are usually 5 in 1
I think whatever flash you have on your point and shoot can work as a fill flash. Try it! I'm sure there is a setting to set the flash to "on". Poke around a bit and see what you see. Try it all. :)
I'm going to go against the flow here and say "just expose for the face". Backlighting is great because you let the background blow out, and it takes care of stray hairs and such all by itself.
Fill flash - is ok, because you can balance your exposure subject and background. But, it creates flat lighting, and you tend to lose the magic that is backlighting.
Reflectors - ditto.
If you place an actual background behind your subject (ie. not the sky) you won't totally blow out your background. Of course, the sun usually has to be very low in the sky to do that, but hey - that's the best time for backlit shots anyway.
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Fill flash - is ok, because you can balance your exposure subject and background. But, it creates flat lighting, and you tend to lose the magic that is backlighting.
Reflectors - ditto.
If you place an actual background behind your subject (ie. not the sky) you won't totally blow out your background. Of course, the sun usually has to be very low in the sky to do that, but hey - that's the best time for backlit shots anyway.
I hope that helps!
Here's one of mine:
And another, showing the PP:
note: natural lighting is better when the sun is not at the top of the subject. so morning and late afternoon would be good.. ^___^