Rain, rain, rain ......

Portrait photography in Sussex isn't always plain sailing, and it was pouring down with rain during the second week of December, so yet another shoot had to be postponed. If it's raining there's no point going ahead since it's harmful to the equipment and uncomfortable for the subjects. Another problem we have at this time of year is the lack of available light, and that particular Saturday was pretty dark. This causes some obvious technical difficulties in terms of the light's quality and directionality, which is so important for natural portraiture. However, it did mean I could enjoy a much-needed day off, and so I accompanied my partner to Surrey for a family birthday. I grabbed a couple of minutes outside with a one-in-a-million model, who needed no direction whatsoever (this is why I love shooting children so much, and this one is adorable).

There was just enough ambient to auto-focus most of the time, but with an active subject I was looking at shooting wide open at a fairly high ISO in order to keep the shutter speed at a usable level. Indoors, the use of strobe would have been intrusive, so we're looking at high film speeds/ISO and wide open apertures. Shutter speeds will be even slower, pick your moments carefully, accept some softness and consider your DOF. This is a great opportunity to engage in the candid reportage shots many of our subjects ask for. If you're at an event as a guest it's nice to pass your hosts copies of any pictures they like.

Kit for this outing was simple - my favourite dual format setup (two loaded bodies, one 35mm FX, one APS-C) with two f2.8 zooms. I could have used a fast prime indoors, but the zooms meant I wasn't in anybody's way. I still love the look of film grain so I rarely, if ever, apply NR to my monochrome low light shots - there's really no need to when shooting full-frame providing the noise pattern isn't objectionable.

Nothing beats a simple traditional head-shot, and I used a soft-focus lens for one of them, and from there the venerable 70-200 f2.8 IS to compress the background a little. Just enough light kicked back off the dining room window to get some catch-lights into the eyes. If you're really picky, try and get them at either 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock where the pupil joins the iris.

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