More and more often, I find myself breaking one of the "rules" of photography and pointing my camera into the sun. While, typically, this results in a dark and/or washed out subject with awful ghosting and lens flare, if embraced as a stylistic decision, shooting into the sun can add a lot of character to a picture.
The popular advice is to shoot with the sun behind you and let its light light up whatever you're taking a picture of. And that is all fine and good, but like most "rules" in photography, knowing the rule is less about following it to the letter and really more about knowing how to get away with breaking it. Knowing what happens under these situations (i.e. pictures into the sun end up washed out with lens flare) is the first step towards using for your own devices.
For this picture of daylilies, I purposefully shot into the sun. Did you notice the prominent lens flare, the washed out areas and the darker subject mater? All those trademark "I shot into the sun" characteristics are quite clear in this picture (just in case you missed the big ball of fire in the sky). Now, did you notice what we gained by shooting into the sun? The semi-transparent daylilies are all lit up and glowing from the sun and all those trademark characteristics come together and add a bunch of drama and contract into what could otherwise be a flat, standard, boring flower picture.
Not all pictures into the sun have to be so over the top. Take, for example, the picture of my mom at the top of the article, which has been reproduced here for your convenience.
In it you have the same trademarks, but much more subdued. The lens flare is smaller and adds a subtle, warm feel to the picture, while the subject is only mildly washed out and isn't overly dark. By framing the picture without the sun, its effects are limited to the light spill hitting the edges of the lens and end up significantly diminished. Also because of the lack of the sun in the frame, the look of this picture could be totally changed by adding a lens hood or shading the lens with your hand. All in all I really like the way the warm tones from the flare and washout combine with the sunlight hitting her hair to enhance the portrait.
Another option for reducing the washout and flare is to block the sun with something. In this case, I decided to block it with my brother's head. Not only is he keeping the sun out of my eyes and saving me twenty bucks on sunglasses, he's got this great "wrap around" light that lights up his hair and separates him from the background. Also, he's got some great light hitting him, as it's sunlight that's bouncing off the trees and buildings behind me. Bouncing a light is a really effective tool to make a relatively "small" light (in this case the sun - yes it's small, did you notice that his head is blocking the whole thing?) into a "big" light (the trees and buildings behind him cannot be blocked out by his head, therefore they are big). The advantage of bigger lights is they are softer and provide a more flattering light for your subject.
While shooting into the sun is something that can get over used, cliché or produce some really nasty pictures, it is something that can be used to enhance a photograph. I quite like the results I've had with it and will be refining my technique until the rain returns in October.
August 6, 2008
Into the Sun
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