Even in the UK, sometimes the sun shines. Not every day, obviously, but just frequent enough to remind us Brits what much of the world experiences during their summers.
SO what do you do when the skies clear and you find yourself creating portraits on a day with searing sunshine? In this video, we explore some of the options from using scrims to using off-camera flash.
Enjoy!
Transcript
Hello, what are all well, you know me, it’s me. And today we decided we’d already got this in the diary and we decided we take advantage of an unexpected hot sunny day. So we’ve headed out into our beautiful studio garden. We’ve grabbed Libby who happens to live just on the other side of the garden. And we are going to explore taking pictures in the harshest of light, direct sunlight. It’s May, it’s the middle of May. We’re starting filming at about midday. So the sun is about as high as it’s going to get. And if you were in a traditional world, in a traditional world, if these were your conditions, you’d be like, it’s going to be hard, but it doesn’t need to be.
If you think about it in a particular way, if you approach it with a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of optimism, you can get beautiful pictures like these. This video is all about enabling you, not necessarily giving you specific techniques, but giving you the energy and encouragement to know that even on a day like today when the sun is blazing and it’s hot and it’s harsh, you can get stunning images.
We’re going to grab Libby and we’re going to use the following techniques.
We’re going to use some shade. Well, I know that’s a little bit of a cop out, but you’ll see what I’m doing and why it works.
We’re going to use reflectors. We’re going to use them as reflectors. We’re also going to use them to cast a little bit of shadow in those moments when I’ve got little else to hand.
We’re going to use a scrim and then at the very end, we’re going to use some off camera flash.
Now off camera flash is probably the most technical thing of all, but hopefully this video will just wet your appetite into some of the options available to you if you just get your head around it and explore some of the techniques.
At the end of the video, I really hope that you feel inspired, enabled, energized, use whatever words you like to get out there in this beautiful sunshine. Who knows if it’ll last? Maybe, maybe you’re watching it and thinking, “The weather didn’t stay like that, did it?” “Can’t help that.” But if you get sunshine, get out there, put on some sunscreen. We’re all a little bit pink in spite of the fact we’ve got our…