Ten Tips for Good Pictures at Mid-Day

Are you old enough to recite that standard photographic commandment "Thou shalt not try to take pictures at high noon"? I can hear my teacher now…."The light is too harsh at mid-day, too contrasty". Is that a word?...Contrasty?....

Well here are some tips to take control of the light and also take advantage of it. High noon is a great time to take pictures if you make some new rules of your own. So go ahead make some new rules, or adopt these, and take those forbidden pictures at mid-day for a whole new direction in your picture taking artistic expression.

1. Move in for what Hollywood calls the tight shots. If you move in close to your subject you can eliminate highlights and deep shadows. The resulting focus on a single, carefully composed element produces a more dramatic image with a more nuanced artistic statement. Try this on a belly button ring with just the navel and one perfectly molded hipbone in the viewfinder.

2. Back light your subject for high noon photography to give the subject a glass art effect with rim lighting on the edges. The halo effect of backlight through a rumpled mass of a little girls hair can create the illusion of a perfect angel where a savvy parent knows there is no chance for one.

3. Remember fill light, or fill flash? When you control the light with fill, you can balance the brightness of shadows in relation to high noon sunlight. Add daylight flash at something a bit less than full power to the ambient light reading. Darrell Gulin recommends -1 to -1 1/3 for mid-toned subjects and -1 ½ for mid-tone with a fill flash to - 2/3 to -1 on the dark subjects.

4. If the day is partially cloudy you may use the cloud shadows creatively in mid-day pictures to create depth, drama and color saturation.

5. Diffusing the light with your studio diffuser, a sheet stretched on a frame or an umbrella type diffuser can improve the color and soften the hard shadow edges for meadow studies or small wildlife such as your butterfly and lady bug buddies.