advice? Bright sun shots.

[Carl Mumford]

[Robert Apple]

Im going to defer to others here, Im not a portrait guy, I will say when I do shoot back lit Its always very intentional most often in a minimalistic form with a big background making the subject a point of contrast, so not ideal for portraiture. But could be a creative avenue to incorporate into it.

[LightandShadow]

I recently saw a YouTube video about landscapes and shooting into a bright sky. His point of view was not to mind the blowouts, portraying the scene as seen, not trying to blend a half dozen or so raw files to get better texture in the background, only using the better exposed fore and mid ground as the focal point of interest.

I’m not a portrait guy either. To my eye, the blown out blooms are less concerning than the bright contrasting color of the pink blooms.

[Rob Wood (Admin)]

Honestly, I think you’ve done a pretty good job here considering the conditions. One thing I like to do with portrait is to get them into the shade at that time of day and for me that usually means under a tree or some heavier shade but for other people they can also take some type of Light dispersal device. I have A reflective that also can be used to have Light pass through it but I find it quite fiddly to carry around so I just prefer to walk to the shade. But honestly, I think that shot is pretty good, All things considered.

[bucweeet]

As Rob suggests… move to the shade if possible and…… if possible, you might be able to catch light ‘bounced’ or reflected off of objects to provide additional lighting.

As for the image itself… not sure what software you use, but from what I can see, you should be able reduce the ‘highlights and whites’ to take some of the reflection off.  Additionally, you can try reducing the contrast slightly as this can ‘even out’ and image and then add back a bit of clarity.

[Jim Sisk]

The textbook method is to increase the light on the subject to match the intensity of the backlighting through the use of reflectors or fill flash and adjust your exposure accordingly. When restricted to using only the natural light, the only two options are to move to the shade or where the sun is behind the camera.

[Anne Hornsby]

@geo  It sounds like you’re familiar with what to do when shooting a portrait outdoors.   So, are you asking for suggestions about how to edit the background that you have?   Assuming yes, my suggestion is to work on the right side of the image to remove both the lower blurry pink flower (replace with beige path) and the upper pink blurry flower (replace with in-focus flowers nearby. Finally, I would remove the blurry light green on the bottom left.  Have fun!

[Author]

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