Place in the sun

James Paterson teaches you to tame bright sunlight falling on your subjects by utilizing some key skills to take super sunny portraits

- James Paterson

THE MISSION

Shoot portraits in sunlight using lighting skills, with flash, reflectors, and scrims

The time needed 1-2 hours

Skill Level Intermediate

Kit needed

• Flash

• Umbrella

• Light stand

• Reflector

One of the golden 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. We’re likely to get strong shadows over the face, squinting subjects, and greasy hot spots on the skin. As such, many photographers would put the camera away, wait for cloud cover, or come back at the magic hour. However, the sun can be a wonderful source if we know how to work the angles and manipulate the light.

The main challenge with direct sunlight is the strong contrast it creates in our subject. The difference between the brightest and darkest parts of the subject is so great that the shadows can look impenetrably dark. We need to find a way to reduce the contrast, by lifting the shadows or reducing the highlights – or doing both. There are several ways we can achieve this. For the above shot, we 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 the figure and creating bold highlights. From here, we need to lift the front side of the subject with a flash. We’ll explain how to do this, and explore a few more options for sunlit portraits over the next pages…