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composition, great photography, light, photo, photography, photography tip, photography tips, photos, portrait tips
Portrait in the Shadows: Copyright Michael Rich
Let’s face it. No matter how awesome golden hour is, it only happens a few hours a day, and odds are you are going to want to take photos sometime between an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset.
So can we get quality photos in the middle of the day? Absolutely! You just need to be careful of a few things.
What To Shoot For
I’m sure that you have seen photos of people where they look like themselves, only sort-of zombified. Their eyes look like they have been sucked into their skulls a bit and their skin looks washed out and unattractive. This happens in harsh overhead lighting conditions where the face is illuminated but deep shadows are cast under the eye where the sun isn’t lighting. Even if you expose for the shadows, the rest of the frame will likely be full of blown out highlights. So how do we get around this? Well you can
- use fill flash to lighten up those eye sockets (I personally don’t like this solution)
- use a reflector to bounce the natural light up into the eye sockets, which would work fine but you don’t always have a reflector handy
- You can place a diffuser between the subject and the light source to get rid of any harsh shadows
Michael Rich Blog 
I don’t often get the chance to take portraits, but when I do I try to either use a bounce flash (Unfortunately mine has just failed and I need to find a replacement) The reflector idea always seems to work better when you have one so a colapsable one might work best.
I am just starting try and shoot people. But one tip I have heard from Jasmine Star is to not only shoot in shade but to look for natural reflectors. Place the people in the shade but also positioned them in a way that direct light is bouncing off a wall or floor into there face. Anyway, I thought it was cool.
I’ve heard that exact thing from Jasmine Star! From my own experience, I find it interesting how even objects that are not being directly struck by sunlight give off a degree of luminosity. I have had to bounce light off a white wall (in the shade) onto a reflector and then onto the face of a subject! It felt like I was playing ping pong with light or something.