Sunday Reads: Learning to Overpower the Sun

Sunday Reads

Laura Currie 
25th September 2022

The Power of Light...

Have you ever been a guest at a wedding, and watched as the photographer fired away with a flashgun despite the glaring sunlight and wondered why on Earth they were adding even more light to the scene? The chances are, they were ‘overpowering the sun’.

This technique is especially useful when shooting a wedding – a wedding can’t be rescheduled so you have no choice but to make it work in whatever conditions you are presented with. By harnessing the power of artificial light you can take full control, and hopefully be a lot less stressed! Another bonus to this method is the fact that you can photograph your subject with the sun behind them, meaning they won’t be squinting.

So what exactly does ‘overpowering the sun’ mean? It is a strategy involving powerful lighting to balance the exposure between your subject and the background to avoid blown highlights and unsightly shadows. It is also possible to darken the sky to a more friendly brightness, or even to create more dramatic effects, separating the subject from the background. By darkening the sky significantly you can get really high-end fashion style images. It can be really fun to just experiment and see the different looks you can achieve!

In terms of actual settings, there are no hard and fast rules. There are many variables such as the distance between the model and the artificial light source, how bright the sun is that day, how shallow you want the depth of field and therefore the required size of the aperture etc. But the key is to use as bright a light source as possible and then to adjust your settings to avoid over exposure – primarily the ISO and aperture. If you find you are still over-exposing your images – perhaps when a large aperture is important to capture a blurry background – then the addition of a decent ND filter can save the day. Essentially your settings for the ambient light will render a really under exposed image, so when you introduce a light that you have full control over positioned on the subject, they will gleam forth and really stand out, whilst also being exposed correctly.

Rotolight has some great options for this: you can either shoot with continuous lighting in more of a see-what-you’ll-get sort of way, or, if more power is required then a light like the Rotolight AEOS 2 is even stronger in strobe mode and offers High Speed Sync up to 1/8000 of a second, meaning you can really reduce the shutter speed to let less light in. It can also be triggered remotely via the new Rotolight app, which allows you to control up to 20 lights simultaneously, which is great for shooting cars or even bigger subjects.

ⓒ Guy Thatcher

This type of photography can get pretty addictive as you start to learn to manipulate the light to such an extent through relatively little trial and error to get the results you want. This technique can be used for many subjects, from weddings and portraits to food, products and still life. Basically, your imagination is the only limit!