Portrait shooting skills of romantic Christmas night scene

Around Christmas, there are colorful scenes everywhere, which is a good opportunity to shoot night scenes. Whether it is a portrait or a city scenery, it is possible to create a blockbuster. Make good use of the extraordinary charm and light of the night, do not understand the darkness of the night during the day, and shoot unusual works in the splendor.

This paper first introduces the strategy of portrait shooting at night, and invites Han Jing (Weibo ID: @ Han Jing Leon), a portrait photographer with varied styles, to share his experience in portrait shooting at night. The noisy streets and a person's Christmas highlight the model's Leng Yan and unique beauty in the colorful background. This contrast shooting technique not only captures the beauty of the model itself, but also captures the unique temperament of the model, making the photo warm and moving.

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Lv Qiang (Weibo ID: @ photographer Xiao Qiang), a landscape photographer invited in the second half of this article, shared his experience in shooting city night scenes. The unique hdr-style urban scenery shooting is atmospheric and shocking. The use of wide-angle and fisheye highlights makes the night view of the city colorful. At the same time, in the case of weak light, shooting shocked the Milky Way, and the romantic sky was beautiful and moving.

Photography Lv Qiang

Then, let's take a look at the night scene shooting experience shared by two photographers, and we will always gain something. Pick up the camera and have a unique and meaningful Christmas.

Personally, I pay more attention to light when shooting night scenes, and I don't intend to use lights. Therefore, my night portrait will mainly consider a high-sensitivity body and a large aperture fixed-focus lens. My fuselage is Canon EOS 5D Mark III, and I use EF 35mm f/ 1.4L USM as the hanging head all the year round. It will be more troublesome to shoot with light in such a cold day. In addition, the shooting time is limited, so I don't want to affect the mood of the model, so the whole group of photos is captured more.

I. Determination of the theme

Any group shooting should have a theme, which is also the knowledge of most photographers. This group of films is just near Christmas, and I want to shoot something different. After discussing with my sister, I decided to take a picture of Christmas alone, whether I like it or not, and it is closer to the lives of most students.

With the theme, most of the preparation work is to step on the spot, choose models suitable for the theme, choose clothes, set makeup and set props, which are icing on the cake, but it is best to lack things and not choose those that do not meet the theme.

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Night portrait itself is a very atmospheric way of shooting. Communicate well with the model before shooting, and the rest is to grasp the natural and unpretentious mood. Remember to show the model the effect when shooting, so that the model can understand it more easily.

Second, the choice of light.

Portraits at night have high requirements for light. I seldom use it up when I take pictures. One is to be afraid of trouble, and the other is to cultivate my consciousness of running out of light. Scene selection is particularly important. I will try to choose places with sufficient light sources, such as overpasses with street lights, large shopping malls, squares with square lights or buildings with giant screens.

Generally, the light is soft at night, so the front light and side backlight are good, and the backlight does not supplement the front light. It is also a good choice to take a silhouette.

In portrait shooting at night, the aperture is generally the largest, the ISO is between 1600-3200, and the color temperature is about 3200k, which is convenient for later stage.

The night scene shooting will definitely be out of focus, and the film still values the feeling and atmosphere, so a small number of out-of-focus films are allowed for me, and it is also a good choice to restore out-of-focus films into puzzles.

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You can choose the window side of a big shopping mall and make full use of this ambient light source by using the light source slowly emitted by the window, which is equivalent to a huge soft box. If you especially like students with charming atmosphere at night, try to use more ambient light, try to reduce or weaken the use of flash, or even not use it.

Third, the late stage and feeling of night images

The shooting point is Chunxi Road, and there are plenty of light sources at the scene, including yellow, red and green colors needed for Christmas. In order not to look too messy, let my sister put on a beige coat and a green scarf, so that her hair is more neat and her makeup looks clean and clear.

In addition, the light source implies a hue. If there are too many color patches, it will not look very comfortable unless there are special shooting requirements. If you want to ensure the brightness of the model's face, try to make the model's face face the light source.

Be sure to shoot in RAW format. My later stage is relatively simple, because the cold and white balance selected in the early stage makes it much easier to treat the skin in the later stage. After dealing with the flaws and brightening the skin color, the rest is to restore the environment and add some contrast.

Fourth, some tips.

1, you need a good girl.

2, high-sensitivity body and large aperture fixed-focus lens will make your film quality higher.

3. Adequate preparation will make shooting easier.

You can imitate movies and other photographers' works, but you must add your own things.

5. Snapping is always better than posing.

6. Noise reduction and filtering are necessary.

The work of photographer Han Jing.

Now many photographers, like me, are still in the imitation stage, whether imitating movies or other photographers' works, but don't just imitate, try to add more creativity, otherwise it will be difficult to break through the bottleneck. After conceiving a theme, try to complete the preparatory work comprehensively, so that the shooting will not be too blind, and only those who are prepared can complete a good work.

At the same time, it is also important to improve your aesthetic feeling and cognition of photography. I will gradually add more personal things to my photography in the future. This is how I feel at present.

Night photography is not a difficult skill. As long as you have a tripod, you can shoot almost any landscape works with night scenes. The main difficulty of night shooting is not the technology, but the color finding and composition. This means that finding the right shooting point and shooting time are the two most important things to pay attention to.

Generally, the shooting time is between half an hour and one hour after sunset. At this time, the sky is blue, and the blue of the sky will spread to the building, adding a little cool color to the dark part. At the beginning of Deng Hua, the city is lit up, and warm colors and cool colors echo each other, which will form a vivid picture. The following are three basic shooting skills and experience sharing, which are simple, but the most important thing is practice, and then you will gradually become proficient and progress.

1, street shooting: Street shooting is undoubtedly the most difficult one in the night scene. In addition to skillful skills, photographers need keen eyes. When shooting, try to choose a large aperture lens and raise the iso to ensure the success rate of the film. At the same time, fuzzy light spots can reduce clutter and add romance to the night scene.

Photography Lv Qiang

Pay attention to geometric composition, color composition and current events when shooting. A photo with lines, cold and warm contrasts and stories is a successful street work!

Highest point: It is the wisest choice to shoot buildings at night and choose high places to shoot. In addition to shooting a wider field of vision, you can also cleverly avoid messy buildings and selectively shoot parts. If you are at the highest altitude, all you need to do is to find a good angle and wait for the right time to shoot.

Two extreme shooting methods are recommended:

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1, super wide angle or fisheye, covering all scenery, surreal night photography will give people a strong impact.

2, super telephoto shooting, deep into the distant concrete forest, to find lines, to find colors. Form the plane composition and color composition of points, lines and planes, and describe a concrete abstract work with the arrangement of buildings.

Low light: Low light photography requires a small amount of light and a shooting environment that rejects light pollution. Just like astrophotography, it is very important to balance exposure time, aperture size and iso.

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When shooting, try to control the exposure time with large aperture, wide angle and high iso, and try to control it within 5- 10 second. If the exposure time is long, it will cause the starry sky to drag.