The recent sunny days have reminded me of just how much i LOVE the sun!!! Not only does it make me feel great and suddenly full of energy, it is also a photographers best friend. I especially love whats referred to as the ‘golden hour’ which is just before sunset, when the light is beautiful and soft and.. well, golden of course!
I remember being told as a child when i’d run round the garden with one of those plastic Snappy Snaps cameras (the ones that came with stickers so you could personalise them to look like a vampire or a cat etc… and they had a plastic pop up view finder… does anyone else remember these?!) to always have my back to the sun so that the people I photographed would be well lit with the sun shining into their faces. Well, this mostly just resulted in lots of photos of people squinting with weird scrunched up faces, or holding their hand above their eyes to act like a shield. I still can’t have my photo taken if i’m facing the sun without asking the person taking the photo to ‘give me a count down’ first so that i can keep my eyes closed and only open them quickly and exactly on ‘one’. The result of this though is usually a photo of me with very wide and scared looking eyes (which then instantly water and sting the second after the photo is taken).
Well… how times have changed. I learnt a long time ago that it’s great to shoot INTO the sun, and not with your back to it. And the best time for this is during the beautiful ‘golden hour’. The light is so much softer than the midday sunlight, and it gives skin a lovely soft and creamy colour, and the whole photo just looks glow-y and romantic. It’s perfect for portrait and engagement photography.
Here are the snaps from a fun (and sun) filled shoot with Anna and Thomas during golden hour last summer, in a nearby cornfield in Brighton… enjoy.
Caroline Sansome - Great photos. Love the light effect. Very effective.