Photographing portraits at night - In depth guide (4 Photos)

Hello and welcome to another photography tutorial!

For today's edition, I wanted to talk about how to take portraits of people at night or in low light situations.

Using the photos from a recent portrait shoot, I have created an in depth guide to nigh-time portraiture photography and outlined some other tips and trick to keep in mind in order for you to hopefully improve your night-time photography portraits.

Here are the three topics that I will talk about today:

1. How to keep your photos sharp in low light.
2. How to make the most of any photo location.
3. How to compose portrait photos to get more out of the scene.

1. Keeping your photos sharp...

Since we had decided to do the photo shoot in the evening, the first and immediate challenge we were faced with was the light (or lack thereof). As some of you photographers may know, the most important aspect to taking photos is making sure that the finished product is sharp and good quality. 

This is done by keeping your shutter speed high enough to ensure no blurriness, and keeping your ISO to a level that you know you will be able to process in post-production (I shoot with ISO no higher than 3200, but other cameras may differ). It is also important that you use a lens which has a very high aperture (f/1.2-2.8 at least). The lower your aperture number, the less information in the photo is in focus, and therefore the less light is required for you to capture your image. A high aperture (low number like f/1.8) also means you will have more depth of field separation in your image. 

Therefore, the best way to capture a technically proficient night-time portrait is to ensure that your camera settings are optimized to capture as much light as possible, while avoiding blurriness and having a lower ISO. Below, you can find these tips and other ways to contend with low light summarized..

• Make sure your shutter speed is high enough and double check every image for sharpness before moving on to a new composition.
• Make sure you use an ISO that does not compromise the quality of your photo. I shoot at max 3200 ISO on my fuji XT-2.
• Use a lens with a very high aperture (f1.2-2.8). This increases the light you can capture, and increases depth of field.
• Consider using a flash. A flash can separate your subject from a background, and also allow you to capture a better quality image, as it creates more light for you to capture.
• Consider using a tripod. This reduces hand shake and can allow you to lower your shutter speed to at least 1/10th without having a blurry image.

2. Make the most of your location...

As we highlighted previously, light is a big factor of night time photography in the way that it can add to your scene. During this particular shoot, the location where we were was a new train station under construction which might not have seemed very visually appealing. However, what drew us there were all the interesting forms of lights which the construction workers had set up around the site. 

This light can add to your photo, allowing you to integrate shadows or even create a narrative through your photo. The two photos below help to show this point. These two shots were taken in a small tunnel with one light shining from the right side allowing for side-lit portraits. However, the two different shots, both taken in the same place, with the same lens, portray two completely different narratives. 

In this photo below, we see that the light is only covering half the face of my subject. The separation between light and dark creates a narrative of suspicion, internal conflict or even good against evil.

Meanwhile, in this photo below, I asked my subject to look up towards the light. With more of his face covered in light and the subjects gaze looking up, this portrait conveys a more uplifting and positive narrative. 

3. Be creative in your composition...

Finally, in photography and especially portraiture photography, I believe that your most important tool to capture good photos is to use your creativity. Just like any skill, I also believe that this creativity can be improved through practice such as going out with friends and doing more portraiture photography. 

To do this, it is important to look at any possible scene or composition from the perspective of what the final shot would look like after post-processing and editing. This means one must always be on the lookout during a shoot for scenes, compositions or other external factors which could add to your image and create an interesting or captivating photograph.

To show you this, lets look at the first picture of this post again:

Settings	(ISO 3200, f/1.2, 1/125 sec )
Lens	(56mm f/1.2)

If you were to walk by where I took this photo, I bet you would have no idea that a portrait like this could be made in that place. The composition was under a bunch of metal scaffolding and the ground was covered in mud and snow. This is how I got from that scene to this picture:

• I used a portrait lens (56mm f1.2) to blur out a lot of the background.
• I positioned my subject under the construction lights and in the middle of the walkway to create symmetry. 
• I used the side fence as well as the line of lights on the ceiling as leading lines to draw the viewers attention to the center of the image and my subject.
• Finally, I had my subject look up at the light, allowing his face and features to be extenuated by the light source while also creating a positive narrative and feel to the photo.

Conclusion

I hope those of you who made it to the end of the post learnt something new about portrait photography, or most of all, that you enjoyed reading this blog. I look forwards to making many more photography tutorial blogs, so make sure to follow if you dont want to miss out!

Finally, I wanted to add that my blogs can improve greatly through your input. So I would love to hear any critiques, advice, comments or any photography questions in the comments below. 

Until next time,

Tristan 

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Check out my last photography tutorial here:
https://steemit.com/photography/@tristanoliff/how-to-take-amazing-portrait-photos-at-sunset-tristan-s-photography-tutorials-1

If you want to read more about me and my story, click here to see my introduction post:
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@tristanoliff/this-is-me-and-this-is-what-i-m-going-to-do-introducing-tristan