Photo Tips: Better Portraits with a DIY Reflector!

One of the biggest suggestions I got from my reader survey (which you can still take here and enter for a chance to win free money and suggest tutorials like these!) was more photo tutorials. Well, today I've got a super easy tutorial that you can use to make your portraits (or selfies!) look brighter and more professional. 

A reflector is used in portrait photography to spread more light across your subject's face. As you can see in the above before & after photo, without a reflector, I have some harsh, awkward shadows across my face, and it makes my eyes look dark. But with a reflector, the light on my face is more even and soft, which looks way more flattering!

So today, I'm going to show you how to DIY your own reflector for super cheap in under 5 minutes!

What You'll Need:

-A canvas (a piece of cardboard or other flat surface could work too!)

-Aluminum foil

- Tape

• First, spread your aluminum foil over your canvas with the matte (less shiny) side facing outward. (I find that if you use the shiner side, it makes it too harsh)

• Next, fold the edges down so the aluminum foil covers the entire canvas, as well as the sides.

• Finally, tape down all edges.

How easy is that? To use the reflector, have your model (or someone else) hold the reflector under their face, but out of view of the camera, like so:

And there you have it! This is a super easy and cheap way to improve your photos, without any fancy equipment. Please let me know if you try this out, or if you have any other photography tutorials you'd like to see!

Happy Wednesday!