How to Make Outdoor Light Work For You

Hope­ful­ly, the April show­ers are bring­ing in the May flow­ers where you are and allow­ing you to get out­side and prac­tice your pho­tog­ra­phy. Spring brings with it longer days, fan­tas­tic light, and many more chances to work on shoot­ing for the light and not the loca­tion, and you don’t have to be a pro­fes­sion­al to know how to make out­door light work for you. 

Like there are a few steps to shoot­ing inside using nat­ur­al light, there are also a few steps to take your out­side pho­tos to the next level!

Make Outdoor Light Work for You

1. Set Your White Balance

You’ve prob­a­bly been doing a lot of indoor pho­tog­ra­phy dur­ing the win­ter months, so the first step when head­ing out­side is to make sure you set your white bal­ance. Noth­ing says novice more than the dread­ed blue pho­to­graph. Set the white bal­ance, and you are already on your way to mak­ing your pho­tos look more professional. 

2. Try to Avoid the Mid-Day Sun

When the sun is direct­ly over­head, it casts hard light, thus caus­ing harsh shad­ows on your sub­ject. Avoid shoot­ing in that hard mid-day sun, if at all pos­si­ble. If that is the only time avail­able, remem­ber to shoot in open shade. 

3. Avoid Dappled Light 

Dap­pled light is the spot­ty light that comes through the trees. It cre­ates spot­ty shad­ows on your subject. 

4. Aim to Shoot in the Golden Hour

The gold­en hour is one hour before sun­set and one hour after sun­rise. The light is magical…golden and wraps itself per­fect­ly around your subject. 

5. Position Your Subject So That the Light Hits Them Just Perfectly

Pho­tog­ra­phers know a secret… it’s called the cir­cle test. Place your sub­ject where you want them, and then have them slow­ly turn in a cir­cle until you see the light fall across their face in pre­cise­ly the way you like. This is the loca­tion to have them when tak­ing their photograph. 

Like oth­er aspects of your pho­tog­ra­phy, learn­ing how to take amaz­ing pho­tographs in out­door light and make out­door light work for you comes down to prac­tice. Don’t be afraid…grab that cam­era, go out­side and let in the light! And don’t for­get to check out my Face­book page for my pho­tog­ra­phy tips!

Cheers

Dena

---

Learn how to use man­u­al mode and take con­trol of your cam­era so that you can cre­ate the amaz­ing images that you’ve always imag­ined with the Begin­ners Pho­tog­ra­phy Essen­tials Program!