When prepping for an upcoming photo session, I know a lot of our VIP’s scroll through posts on Pinterest to find ideas. One of the questions I get from time to time is how they get a glow behind the person in the photo. Take a look at this photo from a recent session.
Notice the glow around the crown of her head? That is called a hair light. So, what exactly is a hair light? It’s name really says it all. Simply put, the hair light is used to light up the hair. We typically place the light behind the subject (about 2-3 feet) and try to aim the light toward the middle of the shoulder blades preferably in an slightly upward direction. When the light bounces of the subjects back, it lights up the hair creating that glow.
Why do we use it? Well, it does provide that awesome glow around the crown of the head but there’s actually a more technical reason to use this type of light.
Photographs are a depiction of a 3 dimensional world. As professionals, we use light to separate the dimensions making them look more realistic. Hair lights are a great resource to help add some of that dimension back into the image by separating the subject from the background in the image.
Not a professional with a full set up of lights? No problem! You can use this same technique using the natural light from the sun. This usually works easiest at sunset when the light is naturally golden and when the sun is a particularly ideal location in the sky.
Have your subject stand in front of the sun and create a line that starts from the sun, through your subject, and ending with your camera. Ideally you will not see the full strength of the session in the image or really see the sun at all.
The idea is to hide the sun behind the subject allowing the sun’s rays to bounce of the back of the subject just like that off camera flash mentioned above. This will create the same appearance without using off camera flash.
So, now that you have this hot tip on how to use the sun to create that hair light, give it a try!
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