If there’s one rule that gets drilled into photographers of every skill level, it’s the one that says the worst time of the day to shoot outdoors is between 10:00 and 4:00.  At the risk of drilling it in even deeper, that’s because the sun is high and very bright.  The angle of the light is completely unattractive and so contrasty that shadows cannot fill.  You may look at your subject and think the sun’s highlight is beautiful (it might be), and you may think that if you expose for the shadows the now overexposed highlight will add to the composition (it probably won’t).

The secret to successful outdoor images under harsh sunlight is some sort of fill.  In this month’s column we’ll look at a couple of different ways to soften that ugly light and turn it into something more useful.

As we were preparing to shoot this, and were finding the photogenic spots our location had to offer, I turned and looked at my model, Molly, who was standing in exactly the light I just described.  Molly is a beautiful woman, but her good looks were no match for the awful angle of the light. 

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