A Simple Tip For Beginner Photographers

Okay this is a tip that is a "duh" for most people.  

Which is why I'm sharing this only for those who just haven't gotten the "ah-ha!" quite yet.

Here's a scenario:  You and a photographer stand side by side... you both have the same camera and lens.... they take one picture and you take a picture in the exact same spot and you both come out with two TOTALLY different things.  

And you wonder.... what???!  Obviously there could be many different factors of why... but I'll just share one of the reasons.... lighting. 

I don't usually bring a lot of fancy gear (mostly because I just don't have a lot of fancy gear) I mostly just keep my eye on how the sunlight hits.

Sometimes I have clients that will suggest a particular spot at a location and I see that... no... that won't work and I usually suggest something else.  And they wonder why not?  Here's an example:

I took these two pictures of myself in the exact same spot next to this exact same tree.  These images are SOOC (straight out of camera) No editing. 

So what did I do that was different?  

I turned around.

Yep.  I just simply turned around.

It's super simple and the results are completely different.  The first image, I was just facing the sun.  The sun was very harsh, and casted very unflattering shadows.  And I kept squinting. 

When I turned around, not only was I not squinting anymore, but the backlighting created this nice glow and a MUCH more flattering image of myself.  Hey, you can see my eyes!!

So there's my secret!

Hope this will help someone!  Cheers!

- Olivia