On Location: Create a Vintage Surfer Portrait on the Beach

Step Two

With my surf shop location set, next up was determining the camera angle and lighting ratio between daylight and flash. I had Stray stand, lean, and “chill” in different areas in the shop until I found an angle that included a lot of the surfboards and kayaks in the background. These props were critical to help tell the story of this environmental portrait. The shop was under some trees, eliminating most of the sun and background hotspots. I decided to go for my normal ratio between flash and background, one stop difference. The background would be one stop underexposed relative to the flash exposure on my subject. This would give Stray nice separation from the background, but I would still have enough light to see the background elements. A quick shot without flash confirmed things looked good, and all the image needed was some flash to bring it to life.