SLR Lounge Feature - Environmental Portraits Using OCF
Whether you follow my personal work or Twisted Oaks Studio, you should have a pretty good idea of my shooting style. My wedding studio, Twisted Oaks, has a very solid brand which is based off of that same style. It plays a pretty big role in our success due to the simple fact that it’s tough as shit to nail down and be consistent with. I already had a style and brand ready to go by the time I started Twisted Oaks and we were able to hit the ground running.
A big piece of the creative puzzle for us is our environmental portraits. You know the ones, AKA “little people big scene” type of photos. Some love them, some hate them. Personally, I’ve always loved them no matter what type of photography I’m shooting, even my own family photos. They do an amazing job at helping to tell the story by showing off the environment that is surrounding the subject/subjects. Even when watching movies, I absolutely love the super-wide-angle shots like the one below from The Revenant. Sure, they aren’t for everyone and whether you love them or hate them, the majority of our clients specifically ask for them to be taken on their wedding day.
The style that I created for the Twisted Oaks Studio brand has a very natural light look to it. I don’t call our photographers natural light shooters because their skill sets are far more advanced then that. With that being said, I don't think that I've done a portrait session, engagement shoot or wedding without using OCF for over a year now (Maybe one or two portrait shoots). The bottom line is that whether I’m using natural or artificial lighting, my goal is always to create a look as natural as possible to stay consistent with our brand’s style.
Since we take a lot of environmental portraits, we've had to really learn the best approach to lighting them after dark or when there simply isn't enough natural light. If you're a natural light photographer and think these techniques aren't your style, don’t let that be a deterant. Trust me on this, it's all about learning how to be as versatile as possible. When clients are paying you big bucks to capture their important moments in a very specific style, you need to be able to provide that no matter what time of day or what the lighting conditions are.
A few years back, both my wife Sandi and I made a very important decision to focus on getting better with creating our typical natural light environmental portraits with off-camera flash. It was one of the best decisions we’ve made over the past few years and we can create this type of photograph for our clients without having that limitation. Our goal is and always will be to make any of our artificially lit portraits look as if only natural light was used. We want it to be tough to tell what kind of light was used by the viewer, even though it’s not always possible to pull off. Hands down, that was the most challenging thing we faced when we decided to start adding in artificial light years ago. But, it’s paid off and we couldn’t be happier with our work ever since.
Check out the SLR Lounge Feature article on using artificial lighting for environmental portraits, I have a few examples of recent shots that I’ve done along with the story behind them. Any questions, please feel free to ask in the comment section below. Click on the image above to check out the article.
If you're a photographer who wants to learn more about this type of lighting, this is where you want to go: https://www.slrloungeworkshops.com/a/15511/FeyGewzz