How to Get Great Outdoor Photos Using the Sun
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This article is filed in the Taking Better Photographs category
The conventional wisdom in outdoor photography dictates that a subject should be well lit by the sun so that all the details of the subject can easily be seen in the photo. The easiest way to do this is by placing the sun at your (the photographer’s) back, so that the sun lights up your subject from a high front angle. There’s nothing necessarily wrong about this method. But we want to push the limits of of photographic skills, right? Right! So, here’s a tip to help you get more interesting outdoor photos, especially outdoor portraits.
The Hair Light provides nice highlights on the hair and shoulders of the subject
In the studio I, like most photographers, use a “hair light” for portraits. A hair light is a light that’s placed above and slightly behind a subject’s head. Done correctly, it creates a nice soft glow on the head and shoulders of a person. For female portraits, the effect is especially flattering, as it highlights the hair. But not only does a hair light create a flattering hair effect, it also helps separate the subject from the background. In this example, the hair light also highlights the shoulders too for a nice effect.
But of course, we can’t move the sun like we can a strobe when we’re in the studio. But, we can move our subject. If we break conventional wisdom, and turn our subject so their back is to the sun, and we are shooting into the sun we’ll get the “hair light” effect we are looking for. However, our cameras do not like to shoot into the sun. Unless you manually dial the exposure to the level of the back-lit subject (i.e. their face) the camera will likely auto-adjust to compensate for the bright background. Your subject’s face and front side will be too dark, possibly even silhouetted. And if you do manually adjust the metering for the subject’s face, the background will be overexposed. So how do we achieve a nice balance?
Using the sun as a hair light in a shadowed area under a tree provides a similar effect as a studio hair light.
The answer is by using “fill” light. By using a flash (or a reflector) we can put some light into the dark areas of our subject. The sun acts as the back/hair light, and our flash or reflector acts as the primary fill light. In the example above, we were under the shade of a tree, yet we had a stream of sunlight coming in down through the trees. Without some front-side fill light the face and features of my subject would’ve been too dark.
There are times when the subject is meant to be too dark. For example, this scene of the beach has a dramatic effect as the camera was pointed toward the sun.
When the sun is in the scene, be carefull of lens flare.
If the sun is in your scene, beware of lens flare. You can end up with streaks across the image which decrease contrast. Or you can end up with lens flare artifacts – bubbles of light on your photos that are caused by reflections within the camera. One way of avoiding this is to shield the sun behind something (like a tree or someone’s head).
As with all my photography tips, the best way to achieve good results is by trial and error. Just playing around with your camera and learning all the settings will help you get used to shooting photos in a variety of lighting conditions. So get out there, and have fun!
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