Editing fairy lights portraits

A quick example of fairy lights photography, a la Brandon Woelfel and the editing from underexposed image to something portfolio worthy.

I shot these with a friend in her room. I already have a blog post about Brandon Woelfel photography where I'm deconstructing his style and this is an example of results using some of those tips. :)

As props we had a mirror, a wardrobe with reflective doors, a couple of fairy lights and the models glasses. The star shaped fairy lights I used I found in Primark but there are many options on Amazon also. I recommend micro fairy lights. The model was sitting with her back at the reflective wardrobe door. The lights behind her are from a few string lights that were hanging on a free standing mirror in front of her. I used my Nikon D7100 and my 35mm 1.8 lens.

The bokeh effect is due to the wide aperture. In the image above you can actually see the mirror behind her. I like how the glasses reflect the lights she is holding.

I also tried using a prism to create a blurred effect as it can be seen bellow.

The images were edited in Lightroom to increase the exposure and brighten up the shadows. Saturation was also increased and I played with the colours for shadows and highlights to bring more of the blue and pink tones.

Blog - Pomegranates and Stories