Featured Photos Weekly Challenge - Sidelight

This Week’s Challenge: #PRTV_sidelightSide lighting your subject this week was a bit more of a technical challenge but you guys came up with some neat shots. It's something that seems simple but gets a bit tricky knowing where shadows will fall, how light plays with your subject, and adding a lot of contrast / drama to a shot. Nice job and see you all next week for #PRTV_retro.Next Week’s Challenge: #PRTV_retroFind out more about upcoming challenges and past winners at photorec.tv/prtv.You can follow Photorec.TV on Instagram at @Photorec.tv and the team:

Team FeatureTeam FeatureTeam Feature
Toby’s Features:

Clean, sharp and perfectly side lit

A post shared by Justin Lai (@justlai87) on

A nicely balanced exposure with some tension as the viewer gazes out of the frame

A post shared by Laurie W (@lauriew100) on

Harsh shadows done well!

Roy’s Features:

Plenty of contrast with this B&W. Important for side lit portraits, you can still see the tiny catchlight in the eye to give it a nice depth.

A post shared by Tyler Manzella (@manfella) on

Lighting is important with macro shots, your subject is so tiny, and I love the bokeh in this shot by Cara.

A post shared by Cara (@cara_devtog) on

The lighting works great with architecture giving them a nice depth with the strong shadows on the features of this building.

Instagram Winners - Flash

Some brighter subjects this week thanks to lighting with the #PRTV_flash Instagram Challenge.  Something you'll discover early on taking photos is you need more light. Either you get a faster lens so the sensor receives more light or you make more light of your own. The latter we focused on this week making a bit of creative lighting for great portraits, catching the action with a 2nd curtain, or even one that took things a bit too literally in a good way.Compounding on this week's challenge will flow into next week with a product Instagram challenge. Pretend you're shooting for a magazine and do a full spread of food lit by a softbox. Or aim big doing automotive photography, shooting a car at sunset, something from my background.  Any product, anyway, anyhow, and it's your choice which way you would like to approach the challenge.To enter post your photos on Instagram before noon next Friday with the tags #PRTV and #PRTV_product.

You can follow Photorec.TV on Instagram at @Photorec.tv

And the team!Toby – @Photorectoby Roy – @RoyMcKeeIII Rose -  @Randomcreativeart

Roy’s Winner:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPWlSbchdgT/Jane has a great photo with dead on exposure in a creative way making a neat story.  Flashes can be props for lighting effects or hidden in a photo easily to make on the spot lighting. In this case, you used that to your advantage creatively making a shot of reading a book turn a bit more magical and a shot to stand out.

Roy’s Honorable Mentions:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPfZjrMBr0-/Krystal shooting a bit of a classic portrait with a twist makes for a nice shot of her daughter for this week's challenge. Bringing lighting closer to your subject can create a vignette for your photos used to great effect in this photo. It gives quite the contrast to the wood grain background going black as it will light your subject up nicely to stand out.https://www.instagram.com/p/BPdqfADDxov/Alternatively, unlike Krystal's photo, you can get quite creative with multi light setups for portraits. Eileen has a neat shot this week using lighting to soften the face but harder light contrasting in the back as a hair light with a blue gel accounting for the color temperature difference. Professionally setups like these would be kept in a "look book" so you'll have your recipes down when you need them and samples to show your customers.