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I’ve gotten a lot of questions lately about how to shoot in undesirable lighting conditions, specifically close to high noon when the sun is almost directly overhead. Hopefully these images from Mary Anne and Gus’s engagement photos, help illustrate how I go about lighting my subjects in those tricky lighting conditions. First and foremost you need to practice in all lighting conditions, and learn to see the light. Knowing how the light hits different objects and surfaces will make a dramatic difference in your photographs.
I started shooting Mary Anne and Gus’s engagement photos at 10:30AM. One: because it was supposed to be a hundred degrees that day and we wanted to beat the heat. And two: because I was trying to shoot their session before high noon, to avoid that direct overhead light. We started off in Georgetown in a little alley where unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of open shade. As exhibited in the image below, the alley was flooded with strong light on the right side, and slightly shaded on the left. This meant that I wanted to shoot most of the images with them on the left side facing the strong light.
I chose this little corner off the left side of the alley where it was partially shaded and faced Gus towards the opposite wall. By placing Gus in this position he was in the open even shade but facing the alley where the strong light was shining.

By placing him here he was perfectly illuminated without any shadows on his face and the background being evenly shaded.
As we moved down the alley and the walls on the right were painted cream colors, they became perfect natural reflectors. The first thing I look for when shooting is the lighting, the second thing I take into consideration is the background. If you notice in the following image, there is a bunch of stuff on the left side of the wall. There is a big pipe sticking out, a fire alarm, and a parking sign. After I figured out where the best light would be reflecting off of the right side of the alley, I then needed to place Mary Anne and Gus in a way that would crop out the junk on the wall behind them.
While I’m shooting I always crop the photograph in camera. Rarely do I shoot a photograph that I will need to go back and crop out things later. It’s more time and work, so I like to streamline it by doing it while I’m shooting. So as you can see in this next image, I placed Mary Anne and Gus about a foot to the right of the no parking sign and thus cropping it out out the view finder and image.
Thank No Parking Sign for being perfectly placed in my way.
As I backed up to get a wider angel, the sign became more apparent in the shot, so I decided to reposition myself. And that sign in the left image? Well, it’s behind Gus’s head. I know, don’t mess with me little sign! And to get a full body shot I could no longer hide the sign behind Gus’s head, so I just had them move to the right about three feet, thus cropping out Mr. Stupid Parking Sign.
As we kept shooting the sunlight was getting stronger the closer it became to noon. Which I was totally fine with, because it really illuminated their faces as I placed them on the left side of the alley.

Then we moved further down the alley, and this image was taken in the opposite direction facing where we were shooting just before. The next set of their images, after they changed, were shot on the right side of this image, right in front of the gray painted wall.
Though the sun was quickly becoming more overhead, I placed them close to the gray wall, opposite the brightly illuminated wall. At this point the sun was super strong, but bounced back into their faces while they stood in the even shaded area, perfectly lighting their faces. I know it can seem like there are a million things to remember when you’re shooting, but I promise with practice, it becomes instinctive and much easier.
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1 comment
Mary Anne - Oooh, kinda like a behind the scenes for our engagement session! :) Thanks for the tips on lighting. It’s one of the many things I struggle with when taking pictures!September 3, 2011 – 12:20 am