Don’t be afraid of the sun

A lot of people are afraid for the sun, being it shooting in the bright sun due to the “ugly” shadows or even worse shooting straight into the sun.

Well the shadow story is true, but it’s also true when shooting in the studio, I always tell people “if you shoot with a large soft box it’s always great, but start using the more focussed light and it gets a lot harder but also much more interesting, shadows are the soul of a shot in my opinion so learn how to use it”.

When using the bright sun outside you can get some amazing shots.
In this series I shot straight into the sun and used an Elinchrom Quadra without any modifier for fill in on the first shot, the rest is all natural light (and the dynamic range of the Sony A99). The shots must not be seen as a series, I played with different looks in Topaz ReStyle to get the looks I really like and because it was not a session for a customer I could play around per image with different looks.

So the next time you’re outside… don’t be afraid of the sun but feel free to shoot straight into it and see what happens, I think you’re gonna like it.