Show Some Artistic Flare

Jason Parnell-Brookes uses a CD to reflect light back in to the lens for a quick and creative portrait

- Jason Parnell-Brookes

Flare can add a wonderful touch to portraits, creating ethereal moods in otherwise-plain settings. It’s often best achieved by shooting directly towards the sun. Your scene is washed with low-contrast light that contains bright sections where the light is most intense. Sunrise or sunset is usually the easiest time to shoot a flared portrait, as the sun hangs low in the sky.

But you don’t have to wait for bright sunsets to get flare in your images. By bouncing sunlight from the sky back into the lens you can introduce cool flare effects at almost any time of day. You can even get this effect on overcast days or indoors as it doesn’t rely on the sun as a direct light source.