#direct light

Meet Chantel. She's our model photographed below, and she was kind enough to pose for us.

Observe in the image below how the direct sunlight completely covers Chantel and she is completely exposed with realy only the shadow under her neck and the shadows of the soccer net falling over her.

Now in the image below, with Chantel photographed in a medium close-up, we no longer have the sun light falling over her face and covering her completely, and more darkness and shadow completely covering the right side of her face.

Her hair and her positioning provide some diffusion in this case and because the sun is to her left, light is almost completely blocked off.

Now observe in the picture below is very different because her face is exposed with no shadow falling over it.

In this case, we used a reflector to fill out all the shadows that would otherwise be present on her face, and because I used the gold side of the reflector, you can see the kind of golden glow brought on by the reflector reflecting the sunlight.

By utilizing a reflector we are taking more control of what we are looking at and the lighting situation that we are in as well as using our positiong relative to the sun.

This is a thoery that get way more in-depth the deeper in to photography you go, more especially in studio lighting situations, but even in you favorite television shows, an intense amount of thought and gear is needed to capture what you may percieve as an ordinary scene outdoors.

This video above is from Crimson Engine and he's one of the best youtubers I've watched as it pertains to all things film and video.

Because he is working in video and not stills, and becasue he is primarily shooting actors, Crimson Engine utilizes c-stands, flags, reflectors, large diffusion filters and other equipment that is quite heavy but sometimes completely necessary.

Another really informative piece of video about this top is from In Depth Cine, and he has a guide on lighting scenes without lights at all, and to do this he advises bouncing reflectors.

So in a situation where you cannot control your lighting, say like a sporting event, your best hack is to always understand where you are in relation to where the sun is.

Understanding this well enough will allow you to get good well exposed photographs even though your are in the outdoor with no equipment.