See. Do. Learn. Repeat.

by Sean Setters

Not long ago we posted a video where photographer Jordan Matter used shop window lights for downtown nighttime portraiture. I thought it'd be fun to try my hand at some nighttime portraits using whatever light that downtown Savannah, GA had to offer and see if there were any additional lessons I could learn along the way. I contacted a local model I've worked with on a few occasions, Hunter, and asked if she'd like to experiment with downtown portraiture; she readily agreed. The following are a few things I took away from the downtown session.

I typically rely on off-camera flash for portrait lighting, but I was determined not to on this occasion. My goal was to use whatever light I could find in downtown Savannah for creating the portraits. Knowing a thing or two about downtown Savannah, we chose Broughton Street as the most likely candidate for finding brightly lit shop windows.

Unfortunately, while there were some shop windows that were somewhat well lit, I wouldn't consider them sufficiently well lit for my preferred portrait exposure parameters. However, the lights in front of the Trustees Theater proved more than sufficient from a brightness perspective. And even though all of the lights were positioned overhead, the huge area that the lights occupied created a very soft light that proved very flattering for portraiture.

While the Trustees Theater may have been perfect from an illumination standpoint, it proved problematic from another standpoint as it located next door to one of the most popular hangouts in Savannah, Leopold's Ice Cream shop. The theater's location combined with its proximity to a busy ice cream shop (with a long line of customers snaking out the door) meant that we had to pause numerous times so that nearby pedestrians could move out (or farther out) of the frame. However, it wasn't until I was reviewing the images later that I realized that the chairs outside Leopold's were a bit too distracting for my taste. It's true that I could have used an even wider aperture (I used an f/1.6 aperture in the image above), but... I'm not sure just how much that would have helped. Of course, choosing a different framing could have eliminated the distraction, but one of the points of using a wide aperture was to create enough blur to render background elements unrecognizable. No matter, care should always be taken to ensure that background elements do not detract from the main subject.

If shooting along a busy street, you'll want to make sure your subject is confident enough to deal with the attention that he/she will inevitably garner. Thankfully, Hunter proved quite adept at dealing with the attention of passersby without missing a beat. However, a less confident subject may require scheduling similar downtown shoots during a less busy weekday evening and/or at a less popular location.

I was actually on my way back to my parking space after the session when I realized I had forgotten to capture an image of the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport under the neon lights of the Trustees Theater entrance. Not wanting to turn around and walk the three blocks back to the theater, I reasoned that I could get the color balance "close enough" in post without it. However, being red-green colorblind and without any great color-neutral objects in the frame, color balance became nearly impossible for me. In fact, I had to return to the same location the following evening to take a picture if the color target in order to get a decent skin tone in the images.

Note that because the neon light of the theater entrance was a vastly different color than the lights illuminating the street and surroundings, the background light took on a noticeably reddish hue. And while that hue may not be what I had imagined when setting up the shoot, the important thing is that the skin tones have an appealing warmth to them and the hue even makes the background look a little more interesting to me.

You may not be colorblind like me, but shooting a color target can help automate the sometimes tedious process of color balancing. It's definitely made my life easier (when I remember to use it).

While I thoroughly enjoyed the convenience of this shoot, with the ability to simply set my exposure, position the subject and snap away, I felt more than a little "boxed-in" by having to limit myself to shooting in a single location and pointed in a single direction (the direction with the most interesting, street light illuminated background). A small off-camera flash setup consisting of two flashes, one (or two) foldable soft boxes, radio triggers and color gels would have allowed me to get similarly-lit results anywhere (or I could have used a single light - possibly with a reflector - as the main source and a rim/hair light behind the subject). This setup would have been more cumbersome overall, but it would have also provided more flexibility.

Final Thoughts

Education is the key to understanding what's possible. Experience teaches us how to deal with the unexpected, giving us the confidence to react and think on our feet. If you come across an idea that sparks your interest, grab your camera and try to replicate the results and/or put your unique spin on the concept. By doing this over and over again, you'll gain the experience needed not only to recognize but to make the most out of the opportunities that abound for the inspired photographer.