This morning I went location scouting up on the Port Hills. In a couple of weeks I’m doing some headshots for a businesswoman who owns a New Zealand immigration advisory service, helping people who want to immigrate to New Zealand with navigating the paperwork and processes involved.

For her website she wants a photo of herself showing off some nice New Zealand scenery as a backdrop, and we’ve decided to head up to the top of the Port Hills to take advantage of the view of Banks Peninsula and Lyttelton Harbour.

It’s all a game of working out various angles. We want a nice sunny morning for the actual shoot, so I had to find a location that gave a nice scenic backdrop if I’m pointing the lens due East, so that the sun is behind the model, otherwise the photos will all be incredibly squinty. My partner, assistant and photographic collaborator Brence Coghill came along to help scout. We stopped at 3 or 4 places along the hill before we found one that has all the right requirements. Easy access from the road, on a slope so that the camera is at the right height to capture model and background nicely, and a great backdrop of harbour and landscape.

Brence hopped in as a stunt double as we set up some off-camera flash to balance out the exposure and generally muck around with various settings. Even though the sky is fairly cloudy in the pictures the sun was shining for most of the time we were there, giving some really hard light over Brence’s right shoulder. Here’s some quick test shots:

Exposed for the background with no flash. Poor Brence looks dark and murky. Overall a pretty blah looking picture. You can tell from Brence’s facial expression that he’s not impressed either.

Adding a single off-camera flash (camera right) adds pop, separation and depth. Brence looks nicely lit now.

I added a second off-camera flash, using a low-powered fill light to soften the shadows. Main light high camera right, fill low camera left (sitting on the ground actually, because we’d only brought one light stand with us). I’ve also moved myself relative to the subject to get a different background view.

By making use of flash it’s possible to tame the sun and control the exposure on the subject without completely caning the background. It’ll be interesting to see how the actual shoot goes and what weather conditions we end up shooting in. Stay tuned.

About the Author

I'm a freelance photographer in Christchurch, New Zealand who does promotional & editorial portraiture, and commercial & advertising photography.