Working With Natural Lighting

After a brief hiatus from shooting while I was preoccupied with travelling and other matters, I returned to my camera and the woods to shoot with a model. The main focus of this shoot was to use natural lighting to highlight the beauty in the male form. The male model used for this shoot was delightfully pleasant to work with, bringing a lovely charm to both the shoot and the photos. 

 

The real significance of this shoot for me was the development in the maturity in my style of photography. The results highlighted to me a shift from novice photographer who was still trying to find his bearings to a competent photographer who is confident in his work and understands what he is trying to achieve. 

 

Throughout the shoot, we varied the poses from seated positions to standing up. Both worked to high levels of success and I am highly pleased with how they turned out. To further my work and abilities, I hope to become stronger at directing models in new positions and guiding them through the shoot. My aim is to produce images with more dynamic poses, rather than the more subdue and natural poses that are in my comfort zone.

 

First Shoot…

My first ‘Nude in Nature’ shoot was shot in the height of summer. Flowers blooming, the sunlight beating down on us and birds chirping merrily – it was a great start to the photo series.

Initially, we found success with the model posing in the flowers. They managed to do a brilliant job of demonstrating the innocence of the male form. By having the flowers be the focal point of the shots, it distracts from the nudity of the model, and shows the beauty of nature!

 

After the flowers, we headed to a wooded area in order to create some interesting shapes and poses which incorporated the trees! The aim was to make the model look taller than he is by playing with perception. While the model doesn’t look too much taller than he is, we still managed to create dynamic shots by using the tree branch.

We finished the shoot by going out into an open field and working on some lying down poses. These photos were focused on using light and shadows on the human form to highlight the body.

 

To see more pictures from this shoot, check out my Flickr, Tumblr or Instagram…