Shoot A Shadow Portrait

Jason Parnell-Brookes shows you how to shoot a dramatic portrait using little more than a wire fence, a flashgun, and a touch of creativity

- Jason Parnell-Brookes

1 HOUR

Sometimes you might find yourself in the great outdoors, shooting in ambient light at uninspiring locations that challenge your creativity. But how do you create an arresting portrait without the advanced lighting rigs and other paraphernalia available in a studio setup? A wire fence in a park may not be particularly interesting in itself, but pair it with a flashgun and you have the recipe for a striking and atmospheric portrait.

In this project, we’ll be firing a flashgun behind a wire fence, and using the short, sharp shadows produced by the fence to envelop our model’s face. We’ll trigger the flash off-camera with wireless flash triggers so that we can position the model – and ourselves – in the perfect spot.

We’ll work on our compositional skills by accentuating the contours of the model’s face using the shadows created by the fence. And, as a finishing touch, we’ll convert the image to monochrome for a moody film noir look that makes the most of the interplay between light and shadow.