Painting with sunlight

Painting with sunlight…with direct sun hitting a major portion of your photograph, will add a dynamic look to your scene. Contrary to most thinking that says the best photographs are taken at mid morning or mid afternoon, I disagree. A bright sun shining on an object with a great amount of detail will give you great results… Especially in black and white photography. Even a high noon sunlight captured correctly will give you a dynamic scene

Shooting a picture into the sun anytime of the day, will give you a silhouette as long as the sun is hidden by the subject. This will give you a high contrast and dramatic shadows. You will want to use the same exposure as you would normally use outdoors. If your camera is set to an automatic exposure it will probably throw you exposure off some and even make the scene more dramatic.

Of course, an early morning or later afternoon sun will have you more shadows and possibly more detail. But don’t put the camera away just because it is noon.

The two photos included in this blog were taken in Texas north of Dallas in early afternoon. They were captured about an hour a part. The bright sun brings out the detail in both of them and gives a darker sky for the backdrop which provides a very dramatic effect to the entire scenes.