Portraits at sunset

James Paterson shows how you can shoot vibrant photos of your friends and family at sundown even if the sun doesn’t appear

- James Paterson

The Mission – Shoot portraits at sunset with a flash

Time – One hour

Skill level – Intermediate

Kit needed – Flash – Wireless trigger – Softbox – Light stand

The magic hour has long been known as the best time of day to capture gorgeous landscape photos, but it’s being increasingly used by portrait photographers too. As the sun goes down the vibrant colours can create a stunning backdrop for portraits. And even if the sky doesn’t erupt into colour, it’s still a great time to head out for dramatic clouds.

The key challenge to overcome is the strong backlighting we get when shooting towards the setting sun. This makes it tricky to get a balanced exposure, because the subject’s front will be in deep shade. If using the natural light alone we could expose for the shade, but this’ll blow out the sky, or we could expose for the bright sky, but then the subject will be in silhouette. Both can lead to great portraits, but if we want to record detail in the sky and the subject we must supplement the natural light with some of our own.

An off-camera flash is ideal. A pop of light at the right moment will let us balance out the bold clouds with the light on our subject for a stunning sunset portrait. When it comes to choosing the right light you could use a Speedlight for this, but a standalone flash gives you more control and power over your frame. When we can manage to get the flash working in harmony with the setting sun, the results can be spectacular.