A PLACE IN THE SUN

We’re usually told to keep our subjects out of direct sunlight, but with the right skills a sunny spot can lead to fantastic portraits, as James Paterson demonstrates

- James Paterson

1 HOUR One of the rules for portrait photography is that you shouldn’t shoot people in direct sunlight. Without clouds to diffuse it, the light from the sun is very hard-edged, and we’re likely to get strong, unsightly shadows over the face, squinting subjects and greasy hot spots on the skin. The light is often at its most challenging around midday, and, as such, many photographers will put their camera away, wait for cloud cover, or come back at the magic hour. However, the sun can be a wonderful light source if we know how to work the angles and manipulate light.

The main challenge with direct sunlight is the strong contrast it creates. The difference between the brightest and darkest part of the subject is so great that the shadows can look very dark. So we need to find a way to reduce the contrast, either by lifting the shadows, reducing the highlights – or doing both at once. There are several ways we can achieve this, and for this shoot we’ve used an off-camera flash. In this sense we can think of the sun as a secondary light source.

Our subject has her back to the sun, so it’s hitting the edges of her figure and creating bold highlights along one side. From here, we need to lift the front side of the subject with a flash. We’ll explain how to do this, and explore some more options for sunlit portraits, over the next few pages…

HOW TO USE FLASH IN THE SUN

Set up a flash in tricky midday conditions for bold, vibrant portraits

1 FLASH WITH SUN