TOP TIPS CREATING BETTER SUNLIGHT

Make the sunlight work for you with these simple lighting tips and tricks

01 EMBRACE THE SUNLIGHT

Why not embrace the hard light look? Ask your subject to turn their face to the sun and lift the chin, so that the eye sockets are not in shade. Look for butterfly lighting under the nose (where the shadow cast by the nose forms a butterfly shape).

02 USE FILL FLASH

We can use a flash to gently fill the shadows on a sunny day. Our flash should be close to the same angle as the camera. A hotshoe-mounted Speedlite can also work well. Try using the flash in ETTL mode and Spot metering to set the exposure off the face.

03 LOOK FOR NATURAL BOUNCE

Look for sunlight bouncing off bright surfaces, like white walls. Bring the subject’s face in close to the surface, and it’ll act like a secondary light source to fill in the shadows. You could also use a white reflector for similar results.

04 SCRIM IT

A scrim can be any semi-translucent material that we use to partially block the sunlight, like tracing paper, a shoot-through umbrella, or the diffusion panel from a 5-in-1 reflector like this here. Position the scrim between subject and sun to diffuse the light.

05 MAKE A SPOT LIGHT

A reflector is mostly used to lift the shadows under the chin, or as a subtle fill light source, but it can also give you a spot light effect. Ask your subject to stand in the shade, then bounce a beam of sunlight onto them with the shiny gold or silver side of a reflector.

06 LOOK FOR OPEN SHADE

There’s different kinds of shade. The best for portraits is usually open shade, in spots under high trees or in doorways. We’re looking for areas out of direct sunlight, to avoid top lighting, but with plenty of bright, reflected light to gently fill the shadows for balanced light.