Daylight Nude Photography

Nothing beats daylight nude photography when done properly. It has a soft warmth and natural delicacy that is very hard if not impossible to match with flash or other light sources. There are several reasons why professional photographers might choose to fly half way across the world to photograph a series of images but high up on that list will be the quality of available daylight.

Whether you are shooting glamour, fine art nudes or beauty photography the quality of light is a key element in making your images successful and very often getting the right natural light will give your image a major boost.

These days you can work wonders in Photoshop but I still believe that starting out with a beautiful model photographed in the best possible light is the greatest contribution you can make towards producing a stunning final image. It’s the basic foundation for your image and all the rest is just tinkering at the edges.

The black & white photograph above relies on nothing more than daylight coming through a single window with net curtains and using the bed sheet to offer some soft reflection on the body. It was shot at F4 using a 50mm lens on my 1DsII.

In the past there have been beauty campaigns I have shot in daylight studios using no flash or other sources of light and the images definitely have a natural quality that I very much like. Better still it was also appreciated by the client.

Renting a daylight studio can be expensive but they are in great demand because of the ultimate flexibility they offer and it may be worth looking at your own property to see if there are areas that can be used in a similar way. All it might take are some inexpensive changes such as a fresh coat of paint in a warm natural colour and some net curtains to transform a space into a very workable area for daylight nude photography just like I have done in the picture below.

Whether shooting indoors or outdoors try giving some serious consideration to how you make best use of daylight for your photography.

Fine Art Nude Shape Study

The above fine art nude image was shot with a 50mm lens on a 35mm SLR. It was simply intended as a bit of fun following a rather mundane commercial shoot. The model had a lovely personality and was happy to do more images, just for the enjoyment and as a chance to experiment.

Working out of my rather cramped studio in Milan, where I was based at the time, I rolled down a piece of black unlit Colorama paper to create the background. I then simply placed a fairly standard rectangular softbox to the side of the model, from not too far away. We then applied oil and water to her skin for a more sensual look.

Normally, this light would render everything in quite a hard way, so I started by attaching various pieces of black board; masking down the area of light, until it became just a small slither of light, which produced more pronounced shadows and greater mood, while ensuring the light did not spill over to a wider area that might have ruined the feel.

The model was from Venezuela and had a naturally dark olive skin, but to accentuate this, I fixed a piece of orange coloured gel to the font of the softbox, creating a much warmer look and measured the light levels with a Gossen flash meter.

I like the way that the black pants blend into the background on this image, helping the composition. A straight cut off with skin, at the bottom of her waist, would have had less visual impact. Overall I wanted to combine the feeling of a fine art nude but with an added sensual warmth and sultry mood.

A fine art nude does not need to complex either in lighting or in composition. In fact trying to be too clever may well backfire and it is often better to concentrate on simple interpretations making use of light, shadows and warmth to create sensual images.

Nudes In Simple Daylight

Nudes In Simple Daylight

The photograph above is an example of how nudes in daylight can be done with the simplest of props, lighting and equipment. It was shot with nothing more than natural daylight coming in from a frosted window behind the model with the budget priced Canon 50mm F1.8 lens.

Any lighting you can see on the front of the model is simply reflected back from the white wall tiles and the image was shot at 400 ISO. The camera was hand held and rather unusually for me I relied on the camera’s built in meter, though in this case I knew it would do a fairly good job.

Just like with many other nudes I have photographed, for me this picture is all about the atmosphere and feel. It tells a story that is both sensual and natural but above all I like the way that attention is drawn towards the hands and the tiny drops of water splashing off the model’s body. Forget about the cheesy grins or forced sexy looks. With nudes in simple daylight you can do so much better than that…

There was no need here for a dozen lights, exotic lenses or even a makeup artist. In fact I think it works in large part, precisely because all those elements have been stripped away, so we are left with nothing more than an image which captures a moment in time like a piece of reportage. It shows us a glimpse of pure feminine beauty, rendering fancy Photoshop work and complicated lighting effects as nothing more than pointless distractions. The use of colour in this case wouldn’t have added anything extra either. Shooting nudes in black & white is generally more effective.

The only point of this particular blog post is to say that in photography and particularly when Shooting nudes, sometimes less is more and simple is better.