PBPhoto: Brothers In A Good Light

Brothers In A Good Light

We had thought about canceling this session. It rained off and on throughout the day. Thankfully we didn't. The rain let off and the sun shone behind a thin layer of clouds in the same way that an umbrella diffuses the light from a flash. So the light was soft and directional and by placing the subject a different angles to the sun you can achieve different effects.

I always look for cool transitional areas. Areas that are in full sunlight but transition slowly to shade. This are in our downtown has some of those that I like. This is an overpass. The rocks make an interesting background. If you move the subject far from the opening you get flat light. As you move closer to the entrance, you start to get some direct sunlight that you can use as an accent light on the face or shoulder.

Here is one with the sun almost directly behind me. You can see that there is very little shadow on the face. The little bit of shadow that is there has a very soft transition showing what a great soft box the Lord provided with the clouds.

Here is one of my favorite walls.

This gate was a new find. I've probably walked by it a hundred times.

A yellow door. Wasn't sure about this one but I like the rustic look. Notice how he has the direct light giving a nice highlight on the right side. Again, you have control in a situation like this. If the highlight is too big or too bright, back the subject farther into the doorway.

Not much to say here. Adorable kids sitting on the curb.

I think these are my favorites of the bunch. The sun is behind them giving the great accent light on the hair and shoulders. The sky behind just blows out.

GEEK TECH STUFF: If you're not interested skip this paragraph.

This can be a challenging photographic situation. Most cameras set to automatic will try to meter this down to get details in the bright sky. And that will put the subject into almost complete silhouette. That's a cool look if that is what you are going for. If not, you have to do a little work to get details in the subject.

If you have exposure compensation you can dial in some positive number. This acts like an offset. Whatever your meter thinks is the correct exposure, this positive number will be added to it. For instance, here I dialed in +2/3 or +1 depending on how much sun I had in the frame.

If you have exposure lock on your camera you can point your camera toward something that you want to meter on, press and hold the exposure lock button, recompose the photo and press the shutter release. I used that technique here as well. I have not settled on my favorite way yet. In this case, I would point at the shadow in front of the subject or maybe his dark jeans, hold the auto exposure (AE) lock button, recompose and shoot.

Maybe these are my favorites. I can not make up my mind. I always like the silly faces.

Wow, this is seriously the longest post I've ever made but hopefully on top of enjoying the photos you may have picked up a little something that you did not know before.

Be blessed!

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