Just a tip for these bright summer days

The bright midday summer sun is always a challenge in photography but here is one simple way to make a difficult situation work for you.

If you have a concrete driveway that is in partial shade it is common for dogs to lay just inside the shade on the cool part.

If you approach from the shade side and either spot meter or use manual mode you can produce high key pictures with ease.

The sun lit cement background will overexpose and go almost pure white without the need to actually set up a white lighted background.

Once you learn the trick it becomes easy, I have attached a snapshot of a friends dog I made on a casual visit, I wish I would have wiped her eye gunk first and stopped down so that both eyes were in focus.

This works best on dark dogs, as you can see how the white blaze on this dogs neck starts to be lost into the background. That would have been less noticeable had I not overexposed the frame by about one to two thirds of a stop.

Best of luck,

Greg

I should mention the "the inverse square rule" of light for when you do have a flash and want the reverse effect.

Every time you double the distance the light travels from a flash the power output actually drops 4 times.

So if you get your diffused flash close to your subject and far from almost any background it will go pure black.

My poor woolly husky blew her coat late this year, when she was just on the cusp of making my life hair ridden she walked in on a human picture session I was having so I snapped this picture as she walked up to say hi.

Of course if you are lighting a dog on purpose you would want a catch-light in both eyes, but this is a good example, she was much shorter than the person the lights were set for.

In this case I am using a soft-box but an umbrella will work too if you have a large enough room.

The "soft-box" was about a foot from her and there is a WHITE painted wall directly behind her about 10 feet away.

the only post I did was to up the fill light to try and get her right side of the face to lighten as my fill light was not pointed that low.

"FYI a week later after three baths and a leaf sized garbage bag of hair she is her skinny little summer self"

Hey, thanks for the tips! Great captures too.

Hey Greg,

Thanks for sharing some of your techniques and your photos.

James

That is a great tip and I love the photo. I like the white blaze getting lost in the background. Also, PShop works great on eye gunk, have had to use it myself because I forget to wash a face.

Really nice shot, Sue

This is amazing that the wall was white but you got it to look black. It's a really beautiful shot.

Oh wow ... thank you for the tip, I have so much to learn. Your husky is absolutely gorgeous.

Thanks for the tips. These are the things we newbies appreciate. Nice images.

Doug