PHOTO-TIP: Photographing in direct sunlight

When you take your camera out on a sunny day in the country (or wherever), have you ever noticed that pictures of people tend to turn out to be disappointing? People are squinting into the sun and shadows cast by noses and under eyes are too deep. Professional photographers know that direct sunlight is the least flattering light source for people. A small light source like the sun casts harsh shadows, and its intensity makes people squint. Cloudy days are much more flattering, and we try to recreate those conditions with big soft boxes in our studios. Yet there are still ways to make the best of sunny days.

1. Get into some shade. This may be the easiest, if shade is available. The the sky is your light source, which is much softer. Just be aware that your photos may have a bluish cast to them from the sky. This will be even more true after the sun goes down, when the only light around is very very blue. Sometimes a reflector will help here—and this can be anything: a piece of newspaper, someone holding a towel, anything bright.

2. Bring your subjects near a source of reflected light—such as a building, a bright rock, anything painted in a light color, or even a bush of bright colored flowers, like forsythia. Then photograph them with this light and their faces away from the sun. This is a trick I learned from New Hampshire photographer Steve Bedell. He says he doesn't use reflectors when he uses this method.

3. Finally, if all else fails, photograph your subjects against the sun, with someone's head blocking the sun. Be sure to expose for the face and not the surrounding sky. This may require you to get into exposure compensation and add as much as two stops to your exposure. All point-and-shoots have exposure compensation, but you usually have to get there through the menu. Read your manual and find out how to do it. It can be very valuable and has many applications. You'll completely blow out the sky, which will turn up white, even if it's blue, but you'll get a relaxed, non-squinting face. The accompanying example combines #s 2 and 3, and the light source was a forsythia bush in Central Park.