Backlight Basics : Looking for light in all the right places

As a photographer, its important to learn about all different types of light. Everything in photography revolves around light. What kind of light do you have available? How will the camera read and record the light in the scene? Where are the highlights and where are the shadows? Do you need to add or subtract light? 

Essentially everything starts with light and goes from there. In continuation of my "Looking for light in all the right places" series, today we are talking about backlight.

• What makes it so dreamy?
• How to achieve the "glow"
• Important considerations when attempting to shoot into the backlight
• Pitfalls to avoid

WHAT IS BACKLIGHT?

The technical definition of backlight is:

verb (used with object), backlighted or backlit, backlighting

2. to illuminate (something from behind.)

Pretty self explanatory right? The LIGHT is in the BACK (or behind) your subject. 

A common misconception from many people who don't understand the technicality of photography or lighting (as was mine when I first started) is that the more light the better. In reality, the direction of the light is much more important than the amount of light you have available. Shooting into the backlight often results in photographs that tend to be warm and "glowy" because the light is literally wrapping itself around the subject. 

HOW TO SHOOT INTO THE BACKLIGHT

Shooting into the backlight or shooting in backlight situations can tend to get a little tricky. Although it does take quite a bit of practice, once you figure out a rhythm of how to set up your shot, how to expose correctly and what situations to look for, you will be shooting successfully backlit photographs consistently. Shooting backlit scenes quickly became one of my favorite things to do and I find myself constantly looking for areas and locations that would work well for backlit shots. 

Some things you need to take into consideration when attempting to shoot backlit photos:

Time of Day

The time of day is essential for backlit photos. In order for the light to be coming from behind the subject, the sun has to be lower in the sky. When the sun is high in the sky, its almost impossible to put the sun behind your subject because...well, no one is that tall! Shooting in the early morning or in the few hours before sun sets is the absolute best time to achieve backlit photos. 

You can see in this photo below of my stepson and his girlfriend that the sun is lower in the sky although its not completely at the horizon. The sun is behind and to the right of them (you can tell from the direction of the shadows on the ground.) 

Diffusion

One of the things that making shooting into backlight tricky is that when you put the sun behind your subjects, you are then directly facing the sun. Anyone who has pointed a camera in the direction of the sun knows that sun flares and haze are often the immediate result. However, if you have the ability to diffuse the light by using objects in the environment, you can get the shot without a distracting flare or haziness on the images. Trees work really well for diffusion as well as taller buildings or other natural elements. A scrim or reflector can also work to diffuse light if you are positioned in a way where the sun is hitting your lens directly. 

Sometimes flares end up in photos anyway and often times they can add a really beautiful element to a photo! Other times they can look out of place or distracting. In the photo below I caught a slight flare that ended up right on Mary's leg. Its not horribly distracting in this image, but sometimes lens flares look incredibly out of place and awkward. While the sun was lower in the sky I placed Trevor and Mary here for a couple of reasons. I wanted the sun to filter through those trees because I knew it would give me some beautiful bokeh. I also knew I could position myself in a way where the sun would be directly behind one of the tree trunks so as to cut down on any potential flare. The neutral colored sand also added a great natural reflector. 

Natural Reflectors

Speaking of natural reflectors...when shooting into the backlight, they are imperative. The a very bright light sources is coming from behind your subject, depending on how you expose the photo, your subject can end up looking really flat, under exposed and muddy. If you don't have light bouncing back up on to them, your dynamic range will be too great and you will have difficulty achieving a well exposed and pleasant looking photograph. 

Its for this reason that I attempt to find lots of natural reflectors when shooting outside and especially in the backlight. For the below photo, the sun was low in the sky and to the right creating some beautiful filtered light behind them. The concrete path bounced light back up on to their bodies and faces thus creating a beautifully lit photo of both the subjects and the background. 

Background

Despite the fact that light always trumps background, taking the background into consideration for your backlit photos is never a bad idea. When scoping out your session location, look for dense areas of foliage or leaves next to more sparse areas. Pay attention to how the light falls across whatever elements you are considering for your background. 

Isn't Mary just stunning? This photo works so well, not only because Mary is beautiful and radiant, but the glow and warmth of of everything surrounding her just lends itself to the expression on her face. The bokeh mixed with the neutral green and gold tones along with the way the light is filtering through her hair ads complexity, depth and texture. She was standing on a concrete pavement so there is nice light bouncing back on to her face and she has a gorgeous little catchlight in her eye. The exposure on her face is not competing with the exposure on the background. 

Camera Placement/Lens Flare 

Although I mentioned this briefly above, when shooting into the backlight you have to pay special attention to exactly how you place yourself in relation to your subject. In the below photo of Ashley, I distinctly remember struggling to avoid flare. I ended up placing myself right on the edge of the shadow that the building was casting in order to get her right in between the sun and my lens. I did not use a reflector to bounce light up into her face in this photo and she was standing on some grass, so the difference in exposure between her face and the highlight on her hair is on the verge of being to far apart. If I would have brightened her up some, I would loose detail in her hair (much of which is already lost). I still love this photo because I love her expression and the happiness and warmth, its just an example of how not having even a little bit of light bouncing on to your subject can affect the overall end result of the photograph. 

And a few things to keep in mind when attempting to shoot into the backlight....

• Try to avoid pointing your camera directly at the sun. This may seem like common sense, but when you are positioning your subject with the sun behind them and then pointing your camera at them, it happens more than you know. I don't think small amounts of time pointing at the sun will completely damage your lens, but better to be safe than sorry. 
• Make sure you have something available to bounce light on to your subject. If a natural reflector is not available, use a regular reflector to bounce some light back on to your subjects face. This is the one I use and it works great! It can be difficult if you are shooting alone but you'd be surprised how often you can get others to help you. And kids LOVE the reflector, they think its just the coolest thing ever. Sometimes I break it out and have one of the older kids just hold it even though we might never end up using it at the shoot. 

I hope these tips and tricks encourage you to go out and practice shooting into the backlight. It is honestly one of my favorite types of shots to capture and I can't wait to see what you come up with! 

Light Trumps Background

I am starting a new mini series today and talking all about how to find the best and most delicious light in which to take your photos. These strategies can help you if you are a photographer looking for good locations or if you just want to take better photos with your phone or your point and shoot camera. All of the same principles apply! I'm calling this series: Looking for Light in all the right places!

When I first started taking photography seriously, I made the same classic mistake that most (if not all) beginners make: being highly concerned with what background I place my subject in front of. 

This led me to high amounts of frustration mostly due to where I was currently living. I was in Ridgecrest, which is a small town in the Mojave desert with not a lot of trees or tall buildings or anything really super attractive to put subjects in front of. I felt limited in my location selection because of this in addition to the fact that it stays VERY sunny and VERY warm in Ridgecrest throughout the year so I also had the issue of dealing with mass amounts of very direct, harsh sunlight. 

However, as I progressed I came to learn something extremely important, light always trumps background. If you have to choose between a gorgeous background with really bad light or a not so interesting background with stunning light, ALWAYS CHOOSE THE LIGHT!  Sometimes you get really lucky and you find both and those are often locations that photographers will choose again and again simply because they want their clients to have the best of both worlds. 

How do I know what "good light" is? 

This is one of those questions that honestly doesn't have a correct answer. It is as subjective as any art form is. What one person gravitates toward regarding lighting maybe the opposite of what someone else gravitates toward. For the purposes of this post however and since I am a mostly natural light photographer, I will be talking about different strategies regarding the kind of light that I love...the glowy beautiful dimensional light you can achieve from natural light outdoors. 

Tips for discovering great light

Practice

Take your camera with you everywhere. Practice taking shots of objects you come across out and about from all different directions. Take a friend or your spouse out to your front yard or back yard at different times of the day and take shots from all different directions not concerning yourself with the background. Study the results. The more time you take to practice different lighting situations, you will start to naturally see where the "good light" comes from or where it is occurring. 

Example: I started noticing the light in my neighborhood a while ago. When driving off the main road and taking the couple of turns on to my street in the late afternoon, I noticed how beautiful the sunlight was streaming through the trees. I decided to do a session right in my neighborhood for this exact reason. Houses and parked cars may not intuitively be a background you might think works for an anniversary session, but the light it so pretty, it really adds to the emotion and pop of the photo. 

Look for natural reflectors

Keeping an eye out for natural reflectors can really up your game when it comes to choosing locations and setting up your subjects. Since sometimes setting up in a backlight situation or in open shade, your subject can tend to be darker than the background and get lost in the photo. Using natural reflectors helps bounce light back on to your subject to make them look their absolute best without any crazy shadows or muddy skin tones. 

Example: This was a location I stumbled upon trying to get out of direct sunlight and it turned out to be one of my favorites. Not only does the pop of the blue bridge in the background add some color and interest, the concrete pathway is the perfect natural reflector to place my subject on. Although the sun is neither in front or behind them, the combination of the leading lines, natural reflector and cool colors in the back add up to one stellar location! 

Backlight

It is no secret that one of my favorite ways to photograph is backlit. Getting that beautiful light popping right behind your subject just adds so much dimension and interest and beauty into a photograph that I am sure it will be something I continue to do for a long time. Backlighting subjects can be difficult and it is one of the techniques that I have practiced the MOST since I started learning. The two most important things to remember is to expose properly for your subject and try to avoid lens flare. 

Example: I was at a friends house for a baby shower a while ago and the party was mostly in her backyard. Later in the afternoon I started noticing how amazing the light was looking in the side portion of her yard. The way the light was coming through the trees was stunning. I knew this would be a perfect location for a session. I ended up taking the Sansoms to their backyard for half of their maternity session! After the session, my friends girls came home from gymnastics and I asked if I could take a couple of photos of them in their beautifully lit backyard. The background is literally just a fence and a tree, but the way the light was shining through, I knew it would make a dynamic photo. Here are a few I took of the girls having some fun doing some jumps for me. 

Even it out

When considering the light for your photograph, in order to really highlight your subject and make them the focus of the photo you want to make sure the light is even on their face(s). Hotspots (bright spots) or deep shadows (usually in the eye sockets) are some of the biggest distractors from really letting your subjects "shine". If you have a stunning background but the light your subject would be in is dappled (spotted) or really harsh, they will end up squinting or with racoon eyes and nothing about the photo pops. Related Post: Harsh Even and Back Light 

Example: I sat Trevor and Mary down on some concrete steps for a couple of reasons. First, the concrete is a great natural reflector that would bounce the light that was coming from the right side back on to their faces and second, the steps were completely evenly lit. I composed the shot so that there were no distracting elements or hot spots in front or behind them which allows you to focus solely on them and their expressions. 

I hope you found these examples helpful for looking for that yummy light and stay tuned for a few other posts in this series coming in the next few months!