FIX YOUR PIX—

This shot of my pal Max was done with nothing more than indirect window light.

Most every home has a place where you could pose a person, perhaps leaning against a wall and looking out the window. Get in close with your camera, focus carefully and squeeeezze the shutter release.

Delightful, casual portraits can be made easily this way. Zoom your lens out a bit toward the telephoto end. This will lessen the depth of field and help throw any background detail out of focus.

Here’s another simple technique. Let the person stand so just ½ of their face is illuminated by the window light (not direct sunlight). Then, use a sheet of something white as a reflector and bounce some of that window light into the shadow side of your subject’s face. A piece of wrinkled aluminum foil taped to some cardboard will work nicely.

Bingo! You can do a picture that rivals a studio portrait with very simple tools.

The small photo is the same image. I just fiddled with it a bit in Photoshop software. Your editing software may not be quite as powerful, but, likely you can do some delightful things with whatever picture editing software came with your camera.