Like many families who live months upon months with snow, our garage becomes a disaster over the winter. Instead of organizing things outside, we just start tossing stuff in the garage, and then when spring rolls around and we finally emerge, we need to always spend a few days organizing it all again.

Last week my husband cleaned the garage out (he’s a real keeper!) and after it was all done, the kids were so excited that they spent the whole afternoon riding their bikes and scooters around in the open area. I took the opportunity to grab my camera and ask for a really quick portrait. The kids stood still for about 10 seconds, but that’s all I needed.

To work with garage light, you want to place your subjects just inside the shadow line of the garage so that there’s light on their faces and catchlights in their eyes but they don’t have any hot spots. No garage? All good. You can use a shed or any other structure you have that has a big door and the same concept applies – ask your subject to stand about 2 feet inside the shadow line.

Here’s the straight out of camera image. Settings: Nikon D750 with 24-70mm lens at 48mm. f/2.8. ISO 640. 1/1000

And here’s the edited version.

 

Although the shadows aren’t as visible in the un-edited image, they are still there, so in post-production you can pull them down and make a huge change to the image without affecting skin too much.

Also, I really love portraits that showcase kids’ personalities, which exactly what happened in this image. My oldest daughter has this look on her face quite a bit and so I really like that it made an appearance here. I don’t care at all that they aren’t both looking at me.

Questions? Post in the comments below or shoot me an email and I’ll answer.

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