Photographers are always talking about light – its direction, its quality, and how it affects your images. If you’ve been taking photos for a while, you’ll know that golden-hour lighting (just after sunrise and just before sunset) is often considered best, and diffused overcast light is also well-liked.
However, middle-of-the-day lighting is almost universally hated by photographers. Because midday sun travels through fewer miles of atmosphere, it tends to be harsh and high contrast. And because it comes down from above, it creates deeply unflattering shadows. (The photographers who do like shooting at midday are street snappers; they use midday sun to produce bold, high-contrast images, generally in black and white.)
But while working in the midday sun may not be ideal, it’s often a necessary part of being a photographer. What if you want to photograph the interior of a building, yet it’s only open from 10-2? What if you have a portraiture client who is only available during their lunch break? What if an outdoor wedding ceremony is scheduled at 12? What if you’re traveling, and you only have a few hours to stop at a stunning location?
Luckily, there are a few tips and tricks you can use to photograph at midday while still achieving beautiful images. Below, I share my favorite methods, and I include plenty of hands-on examples so you can see exactly what I mean.
Let’s dive right in!
1. Use open shade
When faced with the midday sun, the first thing you should do is look around for a shaded area: the spot beneath a large tree, an open garage, the side of a building, the space below an awning, or anything else that casts a big enough shadow to cover your subject.
Shaded light isn’t incredibly flattering, and it certainly isn’t very flexible (what do you do if you’re photographing a moving subject, like a dog in action, that won’t stay put?), but it works decently well for portraits, flowers, products, and still-life setups. The benefit is that it creates a softer, lower-contrast effect where no direct light is hitting your subject.
The key is to place your subject at the very edge of the shade; that way, while they’ll be evenly illuminated, there will still be enough actual light for a good exposure:
