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By Russ Burden
The world is chock-full of items that don't go well together.
The quintessential science example is oil and water. How about
a cell phone and a swimming pool? Not a good pairing. In the
world of photography, how about harsh sunlight and portraiture?
While there may be no hope for the first two examples, there
are options for the last. These options include technology,
homemade light modifiers, photographer ingenuity, store-bought
products, or a combination of any of the above that provides
a solution to the harsh light problem.
Example No.1
Before and After: These two images were
made with a digital point-and-shoot camera. I intentionally
included these before and after pictures to prove one doesn't
need to spend thousands of dollars on sophisticated lighting
equipment to net a pleasing image. This is a photo of a participant
on my nature photo tour to Hunt's Mesa and Capitol Reef National
Park. When I saw how the fall foliage and the red vest blended,
I knew there was a photo opportunity, but the light falling
on the subject was awful.
Out from my pocket came my little point-and-shoot. I knew
I had to use fill flash to counteract the high-contrast light
falling on the subject. I set the flash mode to "Forced
On" as it otherwise would not fire due to the intensity
of the ambient light. I made the image, but the result was
still less than ideal. I showed the photo to the "nature-walk
class," and the realization was the flash on the point-and-shoot
was not powerful enough to overcome the harsh sun. I then
asked for two volunteers to stand to the subject's right side
to cast their shadows across her. This softened the light
to the point the flash on my trusty point-and-shoot worked
just fine, as evidenced by the result in the "After"
photo. Moral: A combination of flash technology along with
a bit of ingenuity and two volunteers worked together to provide
a nice souvenir portrait, even with a point-and-shoot camera.
 Example
No. 2
Overhead Sun and A Large Hat - Two Major Obstacles:
When the sun hovers directly above, deep shadows appear in
the eyes, under the nose, and under the chin. To make matters
worse, the lit portions of the face tend to be washed out.
Add to the mix a hat that creates its own havoc-filled shadows,
and the photographic nightmare begins. Thankfully, the fix
is as basic as the pop-up flash on a DSLR, providing the photographer
is close enough to the subject. As an instructor for the Panasonic
Digital Photo Academy, I went to New York City for an orientation.
During this orientation, one session included a photo shoot
in Central Park with live models. I positioned one of them
by an iron fence, as the setting matched her outfit.
As you might imagine, the light was horrendous because the
hat created a strong shadow directly across her right eyebrow
and left eye. I set the focal length of the lens on my Panasonic
L1 DSLR to 50mm and moved in close so the pop-up flash would
be strong enough to offset the harsh ambient light. I had
to set the aperture to f9 because of the strong ambient light,
but in checking the depth of field, this was not a problem
in that the background was far enough away to throw it out
of focus. I set the compensation on the flash to +2/3 so it
would act more as a main light rather than a fill, which was
necessary to overcome the shadow cast by the hat. Look closely
at the image to see how the shadow line of the hat crosses
just above the eyes but even the light is a result of using
the flash and moving in close to overpower what would have
otherwise been a poorly lit photograph.
 Example
No. 3:
White Reflector: In the portrait of the
girl in the red blouse, I used a reflector to bounce light
back onto her face. The weather conditions included cumulous
clouds in the sky. I took the photo when the sun just started
to be obscured by one of the clouds. This provided directional,
yet soft, light. The reflector kicked back just enough light
onto the subject's face to make it the brightest part of the
image. Without the reflected light, she wouldn't stand out
as prominently, and soft shadows would have appeared in her
deep eye sockets and under her nose.
Prepared by TakeGreatPictures.com. For more tips, visit
www.takegreatpictures.com
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