Cloudy days are best for portraits.

My daughter, Leanne, along the Coquitlam River.
My favourite time for photographing is in the morning on a sunny day using a fill flash to hide any disparaging shadows which might fall upon my subject.  There are issues with this scenario though. The need to arise early is a chief concern, especially if your location requires significant travelling.  Then there is the temperature issue; it doesn't do your subject much good if they are clad in enough clothing to effectively bury them.  Then there is the weather factor, as the sun isn't always in a charitable mood.

These are all reasons why I find cloudy days excellent for shooting portraits.  The sun does not produce harsh shadows.  Foreground and background lighting tends to be even.  Fill flash is always a welcome addition to a shot, but it tends to be ineffective when the subject is not close to the camera.  In order for fill flash to work in the above shot, I would need an external, more powerful unit than the built-in one on my camera.  With the cloudy day it wasn't as important to have one.  You can see that my daughter's face is a shade darker than her neckline.  Flash would have corrected that but it isn't too big of a deal as the difference is minimal.

We were out for a hike along the east side of the Coquitlam River.  We started around 10:00 and ended around noon.  Photographing portraits in the middle of a sunny day often rewards you with serious shadows, especially if a hat is being worn.  The overhead sun is very unflattering for lighting.  Cloud disperses that sunlight, producing a soft, even illumination very suitable for portraits.  Fill flash usually improves things even more.

One of the questions many people ask relates to where a photo should be taken.  I chose this spot because I loved the waterfalls in the background.  The fact it was cloudy was perfect as the lighting foreground and background was identical.  Often, on sunny days, it is not unusual to have uneven lighting producing shots which are difficult to improve, even with significant Photoshop manipulation.  This photo required no real intervention.

There are a few other things going on in the shot I should mention.  The green behind my daughter's head helps her stand out just a bit more.  She is in a thirds position.  I used a mild telephoto lens and stood at a modest distance to increase the relative size of the waterfalls behind her.  I used a wide open aperture on a 1-inch sensor camera to reduce depth of field so the background was a little bit blurry; this helps to draw your eye on the subject.

The shot was not planned.  We were just somewhere nice and inspiration hit.  Not only did we have a good walk, we have a nice photo marking the event.  On a cloudy day too, who knew?

Thanks for reading.   www.ericspix.com   Eric Svendsen

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