Exercise: Variety with a low sun.

" This is an exercise to demonstrate some of the advantages of shooting when the sun is low. You can choose any subjects for this project, but they must be in sunlight. Take as many pictures as possible, but aim to produce four as a final result."

Frontal lighting.

This is when the sun is behind the camera and strikes the subject fully. It shows an intense lighting effect with any shiny areas reflecting the sun. I found it particularly difficult in this image to not show my own shadow or that of the camera. In the end I had to lie down on the grass as flat a possible so as to not create a shadow.

1/1250 f5.3 ISO 400 66mm +0.7

I lay down with the sun directly behind the camera. My model had to sit at an angle as the sun was way to bright.

Side lighting.

Photographed with the sun either to the left or the right so that half of the subject is in sun and the other half in shadow.

1/250 f5 ISO 400 50mm +0.7

1/250 f5 ISO 400 38mm +0.7

You can quite clearly see which direction the sun is coming from. The side nearest to the sun, I feel, is still a bit overexposed unfortunately.

Back lighting.

This is shot towards the light. It was quite difficult as the sun was causing over exposure so I bracketed the exposures in the hope of having one that I could use. As the sun was so bright I felt like I was shooting blindly to a certain extent as I did not want to actually look at it.

1/250 f5 ISO 400 58mm -0.7

Edge lighting.

This was the most difficult to shoot. The sun must be outside of the viewfinder and should show the outside of the subject lit as you shoot towards the sun. I found this quite awkward to get right as I was conscious of not producing an image demonstrating rim lighting so followed the instructions precisely.

1/1250 f5 ISO 400 58mm -0.7

I then took another photo, trying to see if I could get more of a rim effect. I just wanted to practise with the settings a little and see what effects I could create. I do like the picture below. I purposely made the image underexposed so that there was more of a silhouette effect.

1/4000 f5 ISO 400 58mm -2.3