High Noon

High Noon

As you become a more expert photographer, you replace putting the sun above your left shoulder with seeking out the Golden Hour near sunrise and sunset, and the Blue Hour that precedes (or follows) it. If you specialise in portraits or glamour or nudes, not to mention landscapes, you learn to avoid the midday sun.

But it can be a time to be out, and not only for mad dogs and Englishmen. I realised (again) just how important it is to break the rules when I saw Mark Seawell’s beautiful image of a canyon near Cedar City in Utah, USA. I’ll put the link at the bottom: somehow, it seems to be very difficult to post links in a blog.



The depth of the canyon has turned fierce sunlight into a delicate and gentle spotlight, bringing out delicate colours. Most of us have seen similar images from Antelope Canyon – one of the places I plan not to visit, because my pictures wouldn’t match the existing ones, and there are too many people increasing their carbon footprints to get there already. And it’s the right time to catch the sun shining down through the treetops, too.

With portraits, it can be difficult, but if your subject is wearing shades, it can produce a really dramatic look: there's a lovely recent example (though shot much later in the day) in the Critique Gallery, from AM74. Alternatively, you can go for a deliberately uncomfortable look, with your subject squinting and screwing up their eyes.

Monochrome conversions can make the most of graphic shadows and highlights: see the difference this makes to the otherwise-mundane image of a plant pot shadow and a hose on brickwork.



For art nude, and occasionally for glamour, you can do similar things – make the most of a sunsoaked body, and take an oblique approach to the face – maybe go slightly surreal and cover the face with a big floppy hat… And a shot using shadows across a torso or limbs can make everything disappear behind the shapes and form: a bodyscape need not expose anything requiring an over-18 tag.

On the sunny days (you may suffer weather in England, or actually have a reliable climate, where sunshine is guaranteed), go out and give it a try. Look for spectacular shadows next to objects you wouldn’t look at twice in the normal course of things. And when you’re processing, go for monochrome, possibly with toning, and high contrast! You can do this in Nik Efex or other plugins, for a big range of preset looks, or in an ordinary editor like Photoshop.