We’ve all been there (by ‘we’ I mean wedding photographers). You’re shooting a beautiful wedding, the bride is all dressed and ready to go, you step outside to scout a spot for their first look and the sun is directly overhead without a cloud in the sky. Oy. Cue the panic! As professional photographers, we have to be able to create consistently beautiful images regardless of the situation we are presented with. But finding great even light in the middle of a sunny day can be quite a challenge! But have no fear, there a still a few ways you can get those nice evenly lit images even in midday sun!

Look for open shade. The first thing you’ll want to do is look for open shade. Open shade is the edge of a shaded area. So when the sun casts a shadow from a tree or building, it will create a patch of shade. By placing your subjects in that shade and facing the non-shaded area, you are keeping the harsh light off of them, but still getting that nice even reflective light from the sunny area! You’ll want to place your subjects as close to the edge of the shade as possible without getting the sunny area in your image because if you go too deep into the shade it will be very dark and you’ll lose the nice reflective light from the sunny area. Here’s some examples of open shade in the midday sun!  And here you can see where I shot this image from.  Amanda and Brian’s wedding was the perfect example of the need for open shade. Their first look was at noon in the middle of the summer in Downtown Richmond. No trees for shade and whatever shade there is is very shallow because the sun is almost directly overhead. But we were saved by a little bit of shade cast by a building across the street where we did their first look and the majority of their portraits!Keep sun off the lens. Another thing you’ll have to look out for on a sunny day is haze. This happens when the sun is directly hitting your lens and creates unwanted lens flares and blown out images. This will totally kill the quality of your images and is very difficult to correct in post-processing. So if you, the photographer, are positioned in the direct sun while shooting, you will need to find a way to block the sun of your lens. You can try adjusting your position so that you are in shade, if possible. Sometimes a lens hood can do the work for you, but not always. The simplest method (which is what I do) is to manually block the light with your hand! Just simply place your hand in between the front of your lens and the sun and move it around until you notice the haze has disappeared from your image!

In this image, the wedding party was right on the edge of a big patch of open shade, which put me in the sun, hence the lovely hand gesture! If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! Now sometimes there is simply no nice shaded area to be had in the middle of the day. Especially if you are shooting a wedding party where you need a large shaded area! So sometimes you’re just going to have to embrace it and put your subjects in direct sun! Ah! When doing so, you want to position your subjects so that the light is still even (notice the theme with how important EVEN light is??) on their faces. The best way to do that is to position the sun about 45 degrees behind them.Also utilize light neutral reflective surfaces! At Shadow Creek for Catie and Erik’s wedding, there was a large white patio that served as the perfect reflective surface when we were shooting in bright midday sun!  In this shot we scooted them just off the patio so it wasn’t in the shot, but we were still getting the reflective light! And if you there’s a particular backdrop or setting that you want to capture, but the angle of the sun isn’t working your favor, then go ahead and just embrace it and position them towards the sun! Just be careful not to blind your clients by having them looking into the sun for too long!  I hope these tips help you to feel more confident and prepared the next time you are faced with a tricky lighting situation!