Bright Sunlight can ruin a photo if you don’t follow a few tips. Here are some ideas.
When you’re taking photos on a very sunny day, the difference in brightness between objects in sunlight and those in shade increases, which results in more contrast.
When it comes to people’s faces, the hard direct light from the sun can be unkind. But this doesn’t necessarily mean we can’t shoot outdoor portrait portrait photography on a sunny day – we just need to know how to work the angles.
The traditional advice for photographers is to shoot photos with the sun behind them, as this results in frontal lighting on the subject. But for outdoor portraits, if the frontal light is direct sunlight then there will be harsh shadows – and the portrait-sitter will probably squint too.
One way to fix this is to reverse the positions, so that you and your camera are facing the direction of the sun, and the subject has the sun behind them.
This potentially gives us three outdoor portrait improvements in one. First, it throws the subject’s face into shade, making the light softer and more flattering, reducing the risk of harsh shadows emphasising wrinkles or less-than-perfect skin texture. Second, it creates edge lighting, giving our subject a halo that emphasises the shape of the head and body. And third, it creates a nice separation between the person and the background.
One final note on safety: never look directly at the sun through your DSLR’s viewfinder. If you’re putting your model between yourself and the sun, use Live View for composing and checking focus. That way you won’t risk damaging your eyes.
Shoot early or late
When photographing people with the sun behind them, it helps if the sun isn’t too high in the sky. So shoot in the mornings and evenings when the sun is lower (especially in autumn and winter).
At the day’s beginning or end, sunlight becomes more diffused because of the angle of the earth’s atmosphere, so the light is softer.
If your outdoor portraits are looking a bit cool, use your camera’s Cloudy White Balance preset to warm things up.
Don’t use direct sunlight
Don’t position your subject so that direct sunlight falls on their face. Hard light from the sun creates too much contrast, with hard, deep shadows. It can also lead to squinting and unflattering expressions.
If possible, look for the shade of a building or tree, or try changing position so that the sun is behind the subject instead.
Find a darker background
When the subject has their back to the sun it creates an attractive halo effect around their hair and body. But that light edge is only visible in our shot because there’s a dark object behind our subject.
When they’re set against a light area, we don’t get the same kind of separation, so if you want the subject to jump out of the photo, position them so that there’s a shady area in the background.
