The trick to backlighting your subject.

Is that an angel before me?

or is it just some very clever back lighting?

I was musing on this, this evening. Possibly because there is still snow on the ground here…*eye roll* and i so often associate this sort of light with those lovely warm evenings in the summer. *sigh*

I miss the sun…

Anyway I really love this sort of light but it can turn out really really naff. It is a really beautiful but it can be difficult to use.

Ever managed it? Taken a shot of your kid with their back to the sun and their hair lights up like a halo? Its lovely right? ah the beauty of backlighting.

and it doesn’t need to be on kids or people!….

 

But you have to be careful. Shooting into the sun can throw your camera a curve ball from the point of view of what it ‘sees’ as the light and you camera is likely to meter for the sun and then you subject is going to be dark..really dark.

So here are a few tips for getting that sweet backlighting.

1. Try to shoot either early morning or later afternoon/evening. This is why i love the summer evenings as you can be out in the warm in the gorgeous golden light.

2. When shooting try and meter from your subject. On a dslr you could try spot metering, so that you are telling the camera the exact spot you want it to meter for the light and not asking it to take a broad reading of the light. You may still end up with your subject having a dark face. In this situation you might want to bring a reflector into the face of your subject and you don’t need anything posh to do that you can use a bit of white card or paper. You just need to reflect some light into the face to brighten it up a bit. You can use your exposure compensation also to make sure that you are not going to end up with a dark subject.

3. If possible try and have a darker background behind your subject, as you can see in the first shot, my son is in front of a darker, green backdrop of a local park. He is therefore separated by the sun on his head from the background. If the background was white then there would be no difference between his head and the background if that makes sense.

4 . You may end up with a bit of your background blown out a bit…with this sort of lighting though it is actually quite nice and like the point before as long as you are not loosing your subject into the background, this is a particular thing to take care with fair haired kids.

5.If you don’t want sun flare in the image put your subject in front of something that blocks it off, you will still get the lovely glow of the sun in the image.

So when we next actually get some sun. Fancy going out an giving it a try?