Light: Where to place it, Part 1: Outdoors

Posted on January 11, 2011
Filed Under Lexia Frank, Lighting, Tips and Tricks | 11 Comments

Hi there!

I’m Lexia, owner of, and photographer at SugarLeaf Photography. I’m so excited to have a little space here on Slice of Lemon, and be able to share some photography tips and tricks, DIYs and hints with you all! As a professional photographer, I see so many people struggling with their cameras and getting frustrated before they even get going. Here, we’re going to cover everything from shooting better pictures (obvi!) to camera equipment, shooting with super inexpensive cameras (think under $100!) DIY projects, and we’ll even dabble in some some post processing such as Photoshop, Lightroom, etc., you name it!

This post is all about lighting and where to place it, and for this article, I’m going to assume that you have a camera that has manual settings you can work with — although you won’t need a manual camera for all of my future posts and tutorials. If you have a point-and-shoot, it still probably has manual settings! So first, before we get into the tutorial, you need to have a working knowledge of how to set your camera’s Shutter Speed, ISO, and Aperture. You also need to know how to read your light meter to see if it’s saying a picture is properly exposed — not too bright, and not too dark.

Disclaimer: If you are shooting in automatic mode, your photographs will not turn out. So, grab a cup of coffee, open up that camera manual and figure those settings out!

For now, I’m going to assume you know how to balance your Shutter Speed and Aperture. The biggest misconception I hear regarding lighting is, “Don’t shoot into the sun.” That is my FAVORITE place to shoot! Place the sun right behind your subject (here it’s my lovely friend Esther — isn’t she cute?) expose for her face, and snap away!

Although you can have any combination of settings, mine happened to be: ISO 200 because we were in bright light. My Shutter Speed was 200 because I wanted it to be fast enough so that she wouldn’t get blurred when she was giggling. My Aperture was wide open at f/1.4, which created all that beautiful bokeh. Bokeh is the shallow depth of field behind your subject, you know, when the person is in focus, but all the background is completely out of focus. Also, for these posts, I promise not to use any Photoshop or post-processing because I want you to see what the images look like straight out of the camera.

Note: If your photograph is coming out white, it means it is overexposed (too much light coming in!) You have to reduce the amount of light that hits the negative or digital sensor (depending on if you’re shooting with a film camera or a digital camera).

To correct exposure, you can:

1. Raise your Shutter Speed to a higher number.

2. Close down your Aperture. Put it at a higher number, which will make the hole that light comes in through your camera smaller, therefore decreasing the amount of light that can get through to your negative or digital sensor.

3. Turn down your ISO to a lower number, essentially making your sensor less sensitive to light. Try one or all of those combinations until you get a photo you like!

If your camera settings were on Automatic, your camera would read the sun’s light and say, “OMG, SO MUCH LIGHT!!!” and it would do funny things, like either make your entire picture too bright, or too dark. But, if you set your settings to Manual, YOU are the one telling your camera how much light you want to let in. In this case, you are reading Esther’s face, and telling your camera that you don’t care how much light is coming in around her, you just care about having a properly exposed face. That, in turn, creates a beautiful haze around her, and that lens flare (see that rainbow? That’s what happens when the sun hits your lens) creates a great atmosphere. So dreamy, right?! AND the best part is that the sun creates something called a ‘hair light’ around the back of her dark hair! This is important for people with darker hair because it helps to separate them from the background. If there wasn’t that lightness at the back of her head, her dark hair would blend into the dark background. It is really that easy. You can also create hair light without shooting directly into the sun by having the sun at her back but just not in your picture frame.

For this photo, I used the same settings, (again,  just exposed for her face) but I didn’t shoot directly INTO the sun. The picture is clearer and crisper, but you loose that romantic haze that shooting directly into the sun creates. But that’s it! Just expose for the face (or whatever you are shooting) and place the sun almost directly behind your subject.

Trick: It might be easier to meter/expose for the face without the sun shining into the camera first, and then recompose so the sun is shining into your lens. The other little tricky thing to this photograph was that I did have at least SOME light shining back on her face. If I were in a professional setting, I’d probably use some sort of reflector. BUT you can use anything! Check out what we used here…

The cement of her back patio! I bet you never would have guessed that this would be an ideal place to photograph someone, would you? The bright sun was reflecting off the white cement and throwing a ton of light back on Esther’s face. Sidewalks, white tabletops, sand… they all make awesome reflectors!

Next, let’s go with the (wrong!) theory that you shouldn’t shoot into the sun. I had Esther turn around, and I put myself between the sun and her. The sun is now shining on my back, and on Esther’s face.

YI-IKES! We’ve got harsh shadows — she’s in pain, and squinting, and we’ve lost all that dreamy atmosphere of faded light. PLUS, now that we don’t have the hair light, and her dark hair is fading into that tree back there.

So, let’s put the sun to her side instead…

Definitely better. Still some harsh shadows and highlights, but at least she’s not squinting.

So really, it’s so easy to shoot into the sun and get dreamy photos if you just learn your manual settings. Stay tuned for the next article when I talk about how to create dreamy light by doing portraits indoors. I know that not everyone has the luxury of going outside in the middle of January like we Floridians do!

Cheers!
Lexia

P.S. Do you guys need help wading through the manual settings? If you’re drowning, let me know, and I can write a post on it! I’m up for writing at whatever level my readers are currently swimming in. It’s kind of dry and boring stuff, but I promise to make some hot pink diagrams, and maybe throw in some rainbows if you’re lucky! I’m also interested to hear what kind of photography you guys like to do! Let me know what you’re interested in learning about: self-portraits, people on the street, your pet, little objects? E-mail me at Lexia [at] Sugar Leaf Photography [dot] com, or leave a note in the comments section of this post!

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Lexia Frank is owner of SugarLeaf Photography, and blogs at Kissing Tree.org.

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