Shooting with Natural Light - Dappled Shade

I've briefly introduced you to the different kinds of light and taught more about shooting in harsh full sun. For this post we're focusing on dappled shade. Other names for this kind of light include partial shade, half shade, medium shade, semi-shade... whatever you choose to call it, this is the kind of shade that has bits of light peeking through.

Let's say you're shooting portraits outside in a natural setting in a less than ideal timeframe. What can you do? Look for dappled shade. It's not the best option for portraits but it's still better than full sun. You can find dappled shade anywhere where there are trees or trellis - anything that creates some shade but also lets light through. If you're lucky there will be a really thick tree with lots of leaves that you can place your subject under. This can get pretty close to even light cast from buildings and solid objects. If the sun is lower in the sky but still too harsh, you can use dappled shade temporarily.

Shooting portraits in dappled shade isn't ideal, but it can work. Remember it always depends on what you're shooting, what you need, what you have to work with and what you want for the shot! The time frame for perfect light is so short, so I've almost always shot in a combination of dappled shade, even shade, sunrise/sunset, etc. This helped me get a lot of different shots during a session. In the example below, the sun was still very strong for certain locations so we found some shade to work with. Notice the bits of dappled light that are peeking through.

In the example above, we found a really thick patch of shade, but you can still see a tiny bit of dappled light coming through. Mostly it's on his shirt and on her legs. This is still pretty good light.

If you move in even closer in this location, you can utilize the light without getting the dappled light on your subject. The light peeking through now becomes a bit of bokeh behind the subject. And just look at that gorgeous, natural light!

The next time you're out shooting in a natural setting, look for dappled shade. Dappled shade can be helpful and provide fantastic light, especially when the sun is still a bit too harsh to shoot directly in.

Shooting with Natural Light - Full Sun

In this post we're learning all about full sun. Full sun is the most harsh (and evil) in the middle of the day. AKA when the sun is at the highest point in the sky. It's that time of day that the shade from your beach umbrella gets really tiny. When I sunburn in record time. During Texas summers, most local photographers tend to avoid full sun like the plague. It's just too crazy hot.

The biggest issue with full sun is that it is not flattering at all for portraits. Take a look at the example above - I'm a hot mess of light and shadow. My nose is super bright and there's a big shadow on my chest cast from my head. This kind of lighting for portraits is all kinds of bad.

Even so, we're often out and about during full sun - especially when we travel. So the light in the above photo isn't perfect and yes, we're wearing our sunglasses. You still want to capture these moments! Don't fret when you're on vacation and you want to shoot stuff and it's full sun.

However - do you want to take portraits?

My biggest tip is to not shoot someone's portraits during full sun if you want to utilize natural light. That being said: photographers can shoot great portraits in full sun, but they have to use things like reflectors, diffusers, and multiple external flash set-ups. I really hate using such things so I almost never use these techniques. Even so, here are a couple examples of how you can manipulate full sun lighting.

A reflector is used to reflect light back on a subject andto help fill in shadows. In this photo, note how the reflector helps brighten my face and remove some of the shadows, but not all the shadows are removed.

Diffusers diffuse the light falling on the subject, making it more even. The diffuser must be placed in the direction the light source is coming from (in this example, the sun is above me.) The diffuser provides a softer, more even light and the shadows are mostly eliminated.

In this photo, the lighting was far from mid-day sun, but the sun was still pretty high up there when we started this late afternoon shoot. We decided to have a little fun getting some shadows and playing with sunglasses. If you're shooting portraits, don't make all the photos like this, but there's nothing wrong with getting creative with harsh light for a series of pics.

So what's my best tip for shooting portraits when the sun is harsh? Look for even shade. Even shade is any shade that is cast by a solid object - this could be a building, carport, umbrella, etc.

In this photo you can see the location Brandon is shooting - the even shade is being cast by the building. Note that this is late afternoon, because the sun is quite low and behind the building. The sun at this time is still too harsh - so we looked for even shade.

And here are the beautiful results - gorgeous light!

If you seek out even shade when the sun is really harsh, you'll get rich colors, flattering skin-tones, and just gorgeous light. This light isn't guaranteed to be perfect, you'll still have to look for the best light in even shade locations, but once you find it, it's fantastic.

So the next time you go out to take pictures try to shoot in full sun, then try shooting in even shade. You'll get the most out of this post if you can take pictures of family and friends, pets or even product detail shots. The best quality natural light makes a huge impact for all types of photography, but when you're learning you'll notice the biggest difference with those subjects.