If you head out unprepared to capture portraits under the midday sun, you might find yourself wrestling with harsh shadows and limited creative opportunities. While this time of day has a reputation for providing less than ideal lighting, we can actually use it to our advantage. With a simple one-light setup and a working knowledge of the C.A.M.P. Framework, we can create soft, natural looking portraits with plenty of creamy bokeh in the background, all under the midday sun.
Let’s get into it.
Video: Stunning Portraits in Midday Sun with One Off-Camera Flash
Gear List
Here’s a breakdown of the gear used to create the images for this tutorial.
- Prime Lens: We recommend a prime lens (50mm, 85mm, etc.) with an aperture of f/1.2 to f/1.4. We used a Sigma 50mm Art lens paired with a Canon EOS R5.
- Powerful Light Source: To overpower the midday sun and achieve this look, you’ll want an off-camera flash with between 250 to 500 watt seconds of power. We used a Profoto B10 Plus.
- Light Modifier: A medium to large softbox will help soften the light and produce a more natural overall look to the light. For this purpose, we used the MagBox 42” Octa.
Like always, use whatever gear you have available to you.
Step One: Composition
Following the C.A.M.P. Framework, we’ll kick it off by determining our composition. We could’ve approached this scene and shot it straight on with the trees directly behind our subject, but choosing a sideways angle instead gives the portrait more visual appeal.
From this angle, we have foreground elements to the right that help lead us into the frame. Also, we’ve positioned the subject in front of a darker area, which will help the subject pop after we add flash. Finally, the trees off to the left extend the background and add depth to the shot.
TIP: Don’t be afraid to reposition your subject a bit down the line if you find the light isn’t falling on them in the most flattering way, and so on. Sometimes, subtle adjustments can make all the difference, especially when we’re using a one-light setup. For example, take the three shots below:
In the images above, we see the effects of placing our subject in three different positions that are not far apart from one another physically, but the results vary drastically. In the first image, our subject is too close to trees and we lose the edge light from the sun. For the second image, we moved our subject back into a sunlit area, but we’re getting too much light on the face and the lighting pattern is not especially flattering. In the third image, we’ve moved our subject closer to the camera and positioned her face away from the sun to create a beautiful edge light on our subject’s hair.
Step Two: Ambient Exposure
Next, we’ll need to dial in our ambient exposure. As we mentioned earlier, the goal here is to create a natural light looking portrait even though we’re going to use flash. Another goal included creating plenty of bokeh, which means we’ll need a wide aperture, so we’ll have to adjust the other settings accordingly.
Here’s a look at before and after with typical natural light settings vs. what we’re going to use to create our shot with off-camera flash, which we’ll add shortly.
In case you’re wondering why we settled on such a low ISO, it’s because doing so allows us to keep our shutter speed a little bit slower. This, in turn, will give us more output from our flashes.
Step Three: Modify/Add Light
Because of how we’ve positioned our subject, the sun is already giving us a number of great light sources to start. It’s lighting our overall scene and providing a nice edge and hair light as well. The sunlight is also giving us little catch lights on the surrounding vegetation.
At this point, we can start to modify or add light to our scene as needed. For this shot, we’re going to add an off-camera flash to illuminate our subject. In this particular scene, the sunlight is entering top down from right to left across the frame and creating a nice edge light, so we’ll place our main light to the left of the frame and criss-cross with the sunlight.
In addition, keep this in mind. Whenever you’re working in midday sun, the general rule is as follows: “When in the sun, one over one.” This means that it makes sense under these conditions to start off with setting your flash at full power (one over one) and adjusting as needed from there.
You can always move the flash just a little bit deeper into the scene (away from the camera and perpendicular to the subject) to give yourself a little bit more light direction and create more drama. Likewise, if you want to make the portrait a little less dramatic, as far as how the shadows fall on the skin, bring the light back towards the camera. You can get very different looks from doing this.
Step Four: Pose and Photograph
Now that you’ve put in the work outlined above, all that’s left to do is pose and photograph your subject. Again, don’t be afraid to make little adjustments to your angle to maximize the return on the time you’ve invested in setting up the shot. By the time we get to the final image, you can see that we’ve adjusted our angle and used the foliage itself to create a natural vignette, and the area right behind our subject is the brightest area in the frame.
Here are our final shots:
