As photographers, our clients look to us for advice on ways to make their photos with us their dream session. We get questions about outfit choices, locations, and time of day on a regular basis, but one of these take priority over the rest when we consider the outcome of our client’s photos.
Jon & I consider ourselves to be natural light specialists above anything else. We believe that heading outside in the natural light for a session is the most refreshing way to provide our clients with the images they are entrusting us to get! We put time and thought into scheduling our session times to make sure we are maximizing our use of all the sun’s beautiful light. We begin our sessions 2 hours before the scheduled sunset time during what photographers consider “golden light” hour. During this literally picture-perfect time, the sun’s harsh light is softened and it’s golden glow flows over and fills everything in view.
To help our clients better understand the weight we place on scheduling session times with gorgeous natural light and also to help educate other photographers, we put together our Top 3 reasons why we choose to shoot outdoors and in natural light!
1. Bright and Even Light: For every occasion Jon and I are hired to take pictures for, people come to us because they want emotion and feelings captured within their photos. Shooting in natural, even light allows us to create photos that look and feel bright, airy, and full of life! There’s just something about the sunlight bouncing off of the cityscape, filtering through a tall pine tree’s branches or a desert Palo Verde that gives our photos a lightened and magical feeling that helps communicate the joy in our clients!
2. Rim Light: The DREAMY light!!! That magical rim light gives a golden halo glow from the sunset behind every detail in a photo and makes them come to life.
It’s what makes a photo go from “Nice” ….
…. to “WOW!!!!”
3. Layering: Last on the list but definitely not the least, we love getting outside for our sessions for the natural layering and framing elements that we are able to use for our photos. Hands down, this is one of my favorite things to be on the look for when we’re shooting during a session! It allows for us to be that much more creative when we have nature to work with. When we have nice even light on our clients, they’re lit up with golden rim light AND the perfect tree or tall grass are there for us to layer and frame our clients in – we feel like we’ve hit the photo jackpot!! I am definitely known to start singing or “shut up, shut up, shut up-ing” our client’s when that magical combination comes together!
So there you have it! Our top three reasons for shooting outdoors and in natural light. Hopefully this little insight can help you as a client to understand our slight obsession over scheduling around the best light! If you are a photographer yourself, we hope it has given you some ideas to try new things and continue to grow in your craft!
Comments +