The Horror Of Taking Photos On A Sunny Day
Preparation, preparation, and preparation. If you want to take good photos, you must be prepared. Needless to say, I was not prepared on this day. In fact, I royally goofed. Everything I did that day demonstrated my lack of preparedness. I brought three rolls of film that had been left outside proper refrigeration for quite a number of years. I shot mostly under the bright noonday sun without a reflector. But worst of all, I brought a 28mm lens for my Leica M6J, which has a 0.85 magnification finder. Thus, my visual coverage was cropped.
Of course, the question that begs to be asked is why I put myself in such a precarious predicament? Frankly, I arranged for this photowalk on a whim. As such, I did not know if I had the time to play hooky on a Wednesday afternoon. Moreover, I did not know if my partner-in-waiting was going to have the time to accompany me. So when the photowalk was confirmed, I did not have time to thaw out my frozen film nor did I have time to check my gear selection. It really was a case of leaping before looking and making do with what I had.
But then again, hope springs eternal with every mistake I commit potentially becoming a story of rediscovery waiting to be dissected… and, this goof-up is just what the doctor ordered. I mean, what else am I suppose to write about? It’s not as if the news cycle abounds with the release of highly anticipated product upgrades, nor has the UPS guy dropped off something worth reviewing. Yes, I am still going to conduct product reviews, and I would’ve already if a certain owner of an establishment didn’t keep the first copy for himself. 😖
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 400 - A properly exposed photo. Highlights, midtones and shadows are retained in properly rendering three dimensional volume.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 400 - Note that all photos have been cropped because I forgot the Leica M6J has a 0.85 magnification finder, which meant I shot my 28mm lens as a 35mm lens. 🤦
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 400 - The tell-tale signs of intervention when dealing with an underexposed subject photographed in shadow on a sunny day. Also, the background is completely overexposed.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 400 - When in some shade and when the exposure spread between highlights and shadows do not exceed one stop.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 400
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 400
So, how can I turn this frown of a photowalk upside down? Where is the silver lining goof-up that I can dissect for the sake of conjuring-up new content? As it turns out, there is a subject matter related to this train wreck of a photowalk, which I could touch upon. It’s a question of taking photos when the sun is high overhead. Now, I know what you’re thinking. This blogger has finally hit the wall. He has absolutely nothing new to say - which is not far from the truth. But again, it’s not my fault I didn’t get the first shipment of a certain lens.
Mind you, it’s not as if I have something against the sun. I like going to the beach as much as the next person - albeit with a generous slathering of SPF 120. The world would be a much worse place without light for half the day. Just think of it. We would have to shoot with a flash all the time. Or worse still, depend on high ISO digital sensors and be satisfied with the resulting noise and reduced detail definition symptomatic of dynamic range stretched to the limit. So without the sun lighting our lives, we’d be pretty much lost in the dark.
It’s just on sunny days there is just too much sun. It’s everywhere, ever-present, and excruciatingly unrelenting in overpowering the vibrancy of everything under its direct assault. Even so, who can resist the lure of a sunny day? I mean, how bad can it be? There’s light - more than enough available light - to shoot stopped down and at high shutter speeds. How can anyone not want to take photos on a bright sunny day? It is when the world in front of the camera is most relaxed and unencumbered by layers of insulation and inhibition.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100 - Eyes in shadow because of shadows casted under the brow ridge. Also when shadows merge with black colored clothing - making the three dimensional volume flat. This happened because the photo was exposed for highlights, which is why the tonal integrity of white values has more definition.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100 - When shadows merge with black colored clothing - making the three dimensional volume flat.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
But that assault. It drowns out midtones. And that’s the problem with taking photos on a sunny day. The horror, the horror. In place of midtones, the sun casts deep shadows beneath areas of extreme highlights exposed to its radiant embrace. As a result of drowned midtones, deep shadows, and extreme highlights, colors fade into a melange of flattened tonality, thus rendering captured scenes lifeless and absent of volume definition. If not for the resulting high contrast from the shadows and highlights, there’d be no sense of volume.
So what is a photographer to do? Be prepared? Bring a reflector to lighten-up harsh shadows underneath the subject’s eye? Or bring a flash with a warmup filter to cast it completely away? But, all these intervention, they all rely on some level of inconvenience. For most, including amateurs, enthusiasts, and professionals alike, the gold standard is to grab and go without any forethought of preparedness. If there were only a way to tame the sun’s embrace, so that the exposure difference between highlights and shadows is just one stop.
Of course, one could always shoot in shadow, under the cover of some structure blocking out the unrelenting assault from above. In that case, the difference between highlights and shadows on the subject will be within that one stop variance. But background will be overexposed by at least three stops. Consequently, any sense of environmental context will be lost. That being the case, what is the point of shooting in shadow on a sunny day? That is, unless if one brings a flash with a warmup filter. However, that requires preparedness.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100 - When highlights merge with white colored clothing and shadows merge with black colored clothing, the combination makes three dimensional volume flat.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
Fundamentally, the issue at hand when shooting on a sunny day is a matter of three stops - between shadows and highlights. Admittedly, these three stops are unsurmountable with negatives, and worse still with positive film. However with digital imaging and its accompanying interventional possibilities afforded by high dynamic range, the sun’s radiant embrace can be tamed - albeit at a cost. Though it is true that intervention in post can recover lost details in blown highlights and crushed shadows, the resulting image will look unnatural.
In the hands of unskilled retouching, any such effort to recover lost details in highlights and shadows will have the tell-tale signs of intervention. Obviously, the course of action is to reduce the intensity of the shadow and the highlights. Unfortunately, the results strip away any evidence of contrast in addition to a noticeable deficit of saturation in the areas of recovered highlights and shadows. Naturally, a second intervention must then be carried out, leading to the secondary tell-tale sign of intervention - hyper-contrast and over-saturation.
So if not digital intervention or preparedness, what then is one to do on a sunny day? Intrinsically, the problem with taking photos under the sun’s radiant embrace is that three stops between shadows and highlights. So, it follows what one should really do is reduce the spread - but how? After my post mortem, the solution came to me right away. What if I were to eliminate one variable - either highlights or shadows - and then expose for the opposite of what I eliminated - shadows or highlight respectively? Then, the spread is a mere two stops.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100 - On some of these photos, I have reduced the intensity of the black clipping in order to bring out some of the details (like seams on the leggings in this case). Unfortunately, doing that comes at the expense of losing deep black values too. Now the leggings look like it’s been in the wash too often.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
Understandably, there’s going to be questions of what I mean. First, how is eliminating the spread by one stop going to improve the prospect of intervention? Second, how would one eliminate one of the variables, given that highlights and shadows are products of the sun’s radiant embrace? Well, if I sacrifice either the highlights or shadows, I can more effectively optimize the tonal intervention of the midtones and surviving variable. Two stops will offer enough dynamic range to fix that. That said, the sacrificed variable will be unrecoverable.
Still, employing a strategy of sacrificing either highlights or shadows is not a perfect workaround for not being prepared. As a result, an addendum to this strategy is to minimize either highlights or shadows on the subject (usually the face) by directing the subject to pose in a direction with the least resulting shadows or highlights. Therefore, directing the subject to face upward will reduce deep shadows under the brow ridge. But, this only preserves the tonal integrity of the face, not the body. That said, deep shadows on the body is forgivable.
Throughout this discussion, you must be wondering why we don’t expose for midtones instead. Obviously, we can. There is no rule against it. However, if you’re sacrificing either highlights or shadows, you’d want the tonal integrity of the remaining variable to be as optimized as possible - since the tonality of the sacrificed variable will be noticeably unrecoverable. As such, you’d want the other end of the spectrum to appear intact. Besides, midtone values are generally more forgiving, therefore making it a better candidate to play second fiddle.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100 - Again, when highlights merge with white colored clothing.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100 - Head pointed up to avoid shadows under the brow ridge.
28mm Focal Length Cropped to 35mm Focal Length @ ISO 100 - head not pointed up resulting in shadows under the brow ridge. Intervention was made by dodging the white of the eyes and the removal of some shadows.
So other than preparedness, intervention, and the aforementioned strategy, what else more can one do when taking photos on a sunny day? One can instruct the subject not to wear black and white. Sunny days demand colors to be worn - blissfully joyous colors of warm climes and summer fun. Also, don’t shoot in color. Shoot in black and white instead. Extreme highlights and shadows work better in black and white. But then, what about the prospect of capturing those blissfully joyous colors? Isn’t that the point of taking photos on a sunny day?
Obviously, this blog post is a placeholder for the month of April. Please also note that the title image has been edited to remove a photobomber from the background.
Special thanks to Beatrice for joining me on this photowalk. Obviously, I forgot to tell her not to wear black and white. It made deep shadows and extreme highlights so much more difficult to tame. Chalk that up as another goof-up for me.
