Sean's Recent Shoot: Panos Galore

[Sean Setters]

I really like this Sean. The background is painterly. On Flickr you said that you shaded the setting sun. How did this look with available light only?

I have no idea. I set up the shade umbrella before she ever arrived. I've started making it a habit to shade my subject unless the sun is directly behind them. Shading allows me to shape the light exactly how I want it with utter disregard for where the sun is positioned in the sky. In other words, it allows me to point my camera in the direction that gives me the background I want without having to worry where the sun is in relation to my subject.

However, in this case, the sun was getting pretty low in the sky and it was 90 degrees to my left. When using polarizers, having the sun at a 90 degree angle (or thereabouts) allows me to capture the deepest colors from the sky. This angle to the sun, however, doesn't really give me the placement I want for a mainlight. With an ambient only shot, only the right side of her face (her right) would have been illuminated by the sun. The (rather hard) transition from highlight to shadow would have fallen right across the bridge of her nose splitting her face in the middle. Also, using ambient only, I wouldn't have been able to underexpose the background and sky, so the image would have looked completely different.

[Steve U]

...with utter disregard for where the sun is positioned in the sky..

Who's your daddy, sun? ...Sean

...The (rather hard) transition from highlight to shadow would have fallen right across the bridge of her nose splitting her face in the middle.

Ouch, you make that sound painful....I'm surprised she's so willing...