I’ve said it many times before. Shooting in full sun is really hard. I mean really hard! In particular when you are shooting a family with kids. I would say that shooting an adult or teenager would be a much easier task. Why you ask? Well, when shooting in full sun, it’s so much more vital that the subject is in just the right spot and preferably will stay in that certain spot while photographs are taken. With kids, it’s (as you can imagine) difficult to get kids to stay in one spot. Plus, I don’t really want them to. I prefer to shoot children in a more fluid, natural state. Within reason. I’ll sort of get them in a general location, but then allowing them to just sort of ‘do their thing’ whatever that is at the moment. I find that the most beautiful photographs are the ones that truly capture the personality and nature of your child. There is not as much wiggle room as we will call it like in the case of shade, where the lighting is basically the same no matter where the subject is. The very reason that I personally would always prefer to shoot at sunset or just before sunrise. I shoot in full manual mode 100% of the time. No joke. I say this not because that’s better necessarily or to try to make it seem like I am all that. I’m not by a long shot. However, I find that shooting in full manual mode ALL the time is the only way that I am able to 99.9% of the time get the right exposure for each image. Full manual mode (at least for me) means toggling/changing focus point, changing ISO as needed, changing aperture as desired and almost constantly adjusting my shutter speed with almost every image. Yep…that’s a lot of different things to think about, but with practice, like with anything else…you can do it in your sleep. HA! And that also applies when I am shooting personal pics, too. I’m a little bit of a control freak…I admit. So manual mode, all the time, in 100% of the cases works best for me. And when it comes to shooting in full sun, I would say that it is completely vital that you shoot in manual mode (especially if you are not using a flash, which I do not) to achieve the best images. Opinions will vary, but I also don’t mind sun flare in your images. Not in every image, of course, but I do love sun flare when shooting in full sun. You can avoid flare and haze by the way you position your lens to the sun or throw on a lens hood to help avoid all haze, but I like to quickly have the option to have sun flare/haze or not. You can see in this series of images that I took recently of this beautiful family at the beach, there are some images that have sun haze/flare and some do not. The ones that do not were shot while myself and the subject were in the shade. Some of them with flare were shot with myself and my subjects in full sun. I also prefer to always face my subject to be in front of the bright sun and I face the sun so that the subject is more backlit. Everyone likes different photograph styles. This is just mine. Some pros would argue that you should never have flare or haze in photographs, but this is why there are so many photographers out there with different styles who are equally as successful. I personally don’t think one is right or wrong, it’s just what you like. <3
{ birth, newborn, maternity, baby, child & family photography in Houston, The Heights, Montrose, Bellaire, West University, River Oaks, Rice Village, The Woodlands and Cypress, Texas }
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Beach Family Portraits Houston
