In this video, Joshua shows us how he improves a harsh noon lighting situation. Learn how to fix harshly lit portraits by overpowering the sun!
When photographing a subject in harsh natural light, the sun will almost always create strong shadows that will cloud the clarity of your portrait. It’s hard to work around without equipment, so what you are going to need is a light that is strong enough to counteract those shadows.
In this case, Joshua is using a Godox AD 600 flash to minimize the shadows on the subject’s face. Yep, you can eliminate the sun’s intense shadows by fighting fire with fire! When you use a strong flash in the sun, the harsh light may still be shining, but now you have a tool that gets rid of the tough shadows you wouldn’t have been able to get rid of before.
As you can see from the before and after photos, the added flash allowed the subject and her features to be far more visible and sharp than they were before the equipment was incorporated.
Although the sun is still beaming down on the subject relatively hard, the shadows are pretty much gone. Just by adding the extra light, Joshua essentially overwhelmed the sunlight with his flash and therefore eliminated the strong shadows. Now, do you get what it means to “overpower the sun?”
Taking portraits in bright noon light is definitely not ideal, but hopefully after this tip you will feel more confident in making a portrait session work in harsh light should you ever need to!
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