The sun is low and behind the subjects

It’s a beautiful sunny day outside so you want go out and shoot, right? Let’s think about this…. How great do the kids look at the beach in the mid-day sun, squinting at the camera? I generally try to shoot 90 minutes after sunrise or 90 minutes before sunset. That is when you will have the most flattering light. Your subjects can look at you either with the sun in their faces or to their backs. This shot of my kids was taken on the beach in Maine about 90 minutes before sunset. The sun was low and to their backs.

Even at the golden hour I rarely shoot with the sun directly in the models faces. Most subjects have trouble keeping their eyes open even in low light. A wonderful option is to use a silk between the sun and your subject to diffuse the golden light as seen here. Try to cover the subject completely. Watch where the shadows created by the silk are falling and try to keep it natural looking.

The light is diffused using a silk

One of my absolute favorite things to do is to shoot into the sun.  Have your subject stand directly in front of the sun.  You will need to carefully watch for lens flare created by the sun entering directly into your lens.  I often choose to have flare in the camera as seen here.

This image has intentional use of lens flare

You will have to use trial and error to see how much flare is desirable.  You will need to either expose for your subjects face using a hand-held incident meter or use exposure compensation in program mode and open up at least 1-2 stops to accommodate for the meter being fooled by all that bright light.  You can also balance the light adding on-camera flash.  Expose for the background and use the flash to light your model.  You can take this even further by under exposing the background by a stop or two and then balance the flash to your subject. This is a trick photographers like Annie Leibovitz use.  It makes the foreground objects pop against the nicely saturated background. Sometimes accidents turn into the best photos…the trick is knowing how to repeat them.

This photo shows the Bokeh effect

My other favorite thing to do is to utilize the dabbled light created by the leaves in the trees as seen in the photo above.  This look is accentuated when using a longer portrait lens. The compression of a telephoto makes the subject in the foreground stand out and creates a Bokeh (derived from Japanese, a noun boke 暈け, meaning “blur” or “haze”) effect.  I also used a white fill card here to reflect more light into the model’s face.  Pay careful attention to what is happening behind your subject.  Shoot at a shallow f-stop so your background is soft and out of focus.

Generally the last thing you want to do is go out in the mid-day sun.  Unless you can find open shade it is really a difficult situation to work with.  Since you probably can’t get a crew and a large enough silk to diffuse a big  area, get creative. Can you work under an umbrella or a porch?  Can you hold a card up to block the direct sun and try to use the shade created?  This image was created on a sunny day around 10am under the overhang of a porch.

Sunny day under the porch

While you are at it, forget about the sun all together.  There is nothing like shooting on an overcast day.   The light is soft and even from every direction. You are not limited to the time you can photograph.  It is an all day shooting opportunity.  This shot on the beach was taken on a cloudy day.

Overcast day at the beach

A real pro works with what light they are given. So take a 360 degree look around you and start shooting.