Tuesday Tip....Backlighting and sun flare...

A lot of beginner photographers are given the advice to shoot a subject with the light coming from behind the camera, lighting up the subject.  And maybe many of you (I know I was when first starting out) are pretty intimidated to shoot into the light.  Once you practice enough and get the hang of shooting into the sun or another light source, you will find that you can create some stunning images!

When taking a picture of a subject with the sun behind, you will most always need to use fill flash to light up the subject's face.  Backlighting is wonderful in the way that it separates the subject from the background! 





Although in the picture of this aspen, I did not use fill flash....  In this case I bumped up my ISO a tad, and overexposed it by 1 stop.



It is really difficult to take a picture in automatic settings with your subject being properly exposed with a bright light behind it.  Your camera will want to expose for the bright sky and it will leave your subject dark unless you are using flash.  Using automatic settings, your camera will take what it THINKS you want it to take....but to get the picture that YOU want, you will usually have to use manual settings.
I am also a big fan of sun flare in pictures, but I do recognize that it is not desirable in all situations.  When I go out on a photo shoot with you, I will always be watching for an opportunity to get an awesome picture with sun flare!