Portrait Practice and Some Autumn colors // Days of Autumn 3

In exchange for learning how to sew skirts, I'm teaching a friend my knowledge of photography.
On Friday, we experimented with finding the best light for portraits. As those of you who have followed my blog a for while know by now, I'm extremely fond of shooting my subjects backlit, and these portraits are an excellent example of my preference for this light.


My dear sister was very kind to let me post this, rather amusing, photo of her natural reaction to having her photo taken with the sun behind me, and thus shining fully on her face.

While the sun did, in fact, do a terrific job of light up her lovely features, it also cast funny shadows under her bangs, and, more importantly, made her squint.

Shooting with the sun behind her solved those problems, and we gained a lovely abstract bokeh background, and her face is still plenty lit up, with the lessened contrast softening the overall look.

As a bonus, some of the snunlight bounced off the cement patio and added a bit of catchlight to her eyes. I wasn't expecting that to happen, but I was delighted nonetheless! I'll just tuck that bit of information away in my mental photography portfolio...

This is not to say that all front-lit portraits should be avoided, just the ones you were going to take in the middle of the day. In the morning and evening the angle of the sun is less sharp, and portraits taken then are generally more pleasing.

Then, if you want to avoid shadows completely, shooting in the shade is an the other alternative:

Now, for an update on the autumn colors:

While the leaves of our Riverbirch are turning yellow, they are not doing so all at once, and many green leaves still persist. *sigh* I was hoping for the whole tree to turn a glorious golden yellow, for I already have pictures of it half yellow, half green.
Ah well, there's always the possibility of next year. =)

Ahhhh...I just love all the explosive color.....

Lastly, I rellize that almost a whole month ago, I posted once about the fall colors.
So why the absence of Autumn posts since then?
Well, that is because this Autumn has been the sunniest, longest and most colorful one that I can remember. The trees did indeed start turning, leaf by leaf, to various shades and hues of yellow, orange and red, and the whole of October- simply continued that. Some years it seemed the trees burst into color and dropped their leaves all in the space of two weeks; but not so this Autumn!
The weather also, has been uncommonly fine, with cool mornings, warming up in the afternoon.

Anyway, without much ado, more autumn colored posts to come! =)

God bless!      ~Jenny