Lifestyle Portraits

I absolutely love studio portraits!  You get complete control over everything that happens (unless the kids are acting up of course).  The light does exactlty what you tell it too and if you don't like it a couple of presses of a button fixes it.  You know exactly what the background will look like and it doesn't matter what the weather's like outside.

But if you want something a bit different a lifestyle shoot might be just what you're looking for.  So what's so different about it?  Well for a start it's not in a studio.  The idea is to capture those relaxed fun moments when you're just enjoying yourself outdoors.  They are usually taken in a park, a field, on the beach or anywhere else you can think of.  Yes you can pose the shots, but the best lifestyle shots are the ones where the subject is just relaxing and having fun.  A natural smile is much better than one where the photographer has told you to smile!

For the photographer it throws up a whole load of new challenges that you don't get in the studio.  First is the light.  You're relying on the sun.  You can't move it or change its brightness so you have to adapt every shot to the lighting conditions.  Yes it can be 'modified' with reflectors or diffusers (or trees!) but you are limited.  That's good though because you can achieve some fantastic effects that you just can't get in a studio.

Next is the background.  White backgrounds are great, but they don't come close to a dramatic sky, a beautiful beach of a brick wall.


So if you fancy something a bit different this summer why not give lifetyle portraits a go?