Summer Sun In Spring

What a week of great summer-like weather it’s been!

Most often as photographers we instinctively head for the relative safety and ease of working in the shade on strong, hard sunlit days, especially in midday and early afternoon when the sun is at it’s strongest and highest in the sky. Also with off camera flash becoming so fashionable and widely used, and in many cases with the flash power capable to overpower the sun, we can tend to pick our backgrounds at will with much lesser thought about the direction or quality of light from the sun which we already have in abundance. While the equipment and knowledge to do this is very useful and it’s a technique I employ often, on this occasion I was determined to use the light that was there from the sun first and foremost, think about backgrounds etc. and only use flash when absolutely necessary. I’ve studied some great work by photographers who use the power of sunlight to their advantage, so that’s what I wanted to do too.

While this blog is mainly about the technical use of light, the images wouldn’t be what they are without our brilliant model, Ria, the wonderful makeup by Catherine and expert hair styling by David Graham Hairdressing, both of Linen Green, Dungannon

All images were captured between 2pm and 5pm on an incredibly bright , sunny afternoon.