Many portrait photographers shy away from direct sunlight. The common wisdom is that you can’t capture beautiful portraits in harsh light but that’s simply not true. Any lighting source can be used to create either beautiful or unflattering portraits. It’s not the light; it’s what you do with it.
You Don’t Always Get The Choice
Sometimes, I don’t get a choice about when or where a shoot takes place. If a midday shoot is the only time my client can do, then I risk losing the job if I can’t find ways to work with midday lighting. Equally, as I live in the changeable climes of the UK, then a cloudy day can quickly turn into a clear one (and vice versa!), so I need to be able to handle both situations.
And while cloud is loved for its softness and golden hour is praised for its atmosphere, direct sunlight offers something edgier: drama. The defined gradation between light and shadow that is a characteristic of harsh light enables photographers to create beautifully simple but striking portraits.
That’s because our eyes are drawn to the brightest part of an image. Using the sun as a spotlight on your subject is therefore a great way for directing and holding the viewer’s attention when they look at the finished portrait.
All that sunlight needs careful control for a flattering portrait, though. You need to choose a suitable location (if you get a choice in the matter!), find the best patches of light and manage your exposure to preserve the highlights.
These three tips will help you get started:
1. Choose a location with options
Wide open fields and plains give you fewer choices. There’s no shade, no corridors of light, no shape to the light. In locations like that, your options are far more limited.
Structures such as buildings, archways, bridges, trees and foliage offer you control over the light. You can place your subject in their shade or you can use the way the structures block and bounce the sun to light your subject effectively.
Pale floors and walls can act as giant reflectors, helping to fill in shadows on your subject’s face, while patterns and textures add visual interest and a sense of narrative in the background or foreground. Anything you can shoot through or around (from foliage to walls and arches) can also be used to frame your subject for some compositional va-va-voom.
The structures around you become tools to create your portrait, giving you creative options to flatter your subject and create a more interesting composition. That’s why a town or city is ideal – they provide a great variety of options within a short distance, especially if you look for the opportunities (patterns, graphical elements etc.) rather than the problems (graffiti, litter, gutters and so on).
After all, if you shoot with a longer lens, as is typically used for portraits (e.g. I almost always work with my 70-200mm f/2.8 lens), then shifting position just a few…