Midday Natural Light Portraits on a Hike
While on the trails one overcast day my hiking partner asked for me to take some photos of her for Instagram. Always up for a challenge and carrying my camera as usual I jumped at the chance to take some photos.
Normally if I have to shoot natural light I would choose to shoot either early in the morning or late in the day to get the sun as close to the horizon as possible. This day was luckily overcast, meaning the sky was essentially an oversized softbox filling in the shadows.
While the images were coming out satisfactorily I knew that I would have to push them pretty far in post since the contrast was a bit too high between the highlights around the edges of the model and the parts of her that were in shadow. I decided to move her into the shadow of the tree in the background of the previous images to lower the overall exposure, and use a rock as a prop. This ended up being my favorite image of the day, even though I ended up shooting my favorite pose of the day at too strong of an angle. When working with amateur models it is extremely easy to get caught up in the directing and posing while losing track of your main job as a photographer: to hold the camera. In this case my composition was drifting off level while I interacted with the model and I ended up with a very skewed shot. If I had the whole day to do again I would have spent more time in this spot, maybe I would have gotten another better image.
Having shot my traditional portraits for the day I kept my camera on hand as we continued to walk, keeping an eye out for interesting props and moments of interest. Sometimes it isn’t the best lit and composed images that are the most compelling, sometimes better images come from genuine moments and pushing the envelope of what you normally shoot. While in this case the images didn’t end up being the standout of the day they are still well worth having and it’s better to take the shot than miss out on a great opportunity.
