07/03/2025
Understanding how light changes during the day is essential to planning a successful shoot. We just came back from a scout in Utah and used the Sun Seeker software to map out how the angle and quality of the light will affect each shot.
Lighting interiors with windows poses its own challenges. It’s a negotiation between the space’s existing light — driven by what’s happening outside — and the need for supplemental lighting to harmonize with that existing look.
To plan ahead, sunpaths come into play once again, allowing predictability and a clear understanding of what to expect at a particular time of day.
Indoors or outdoors, shadows play an essential role in composing shots and directing the viewer’s eye to the focal point of the shot.
Direct sunlight creates dramatic lighting, but also can create challenges if we don’t plan ahead for where it will be, and when.
Backlighting is the best way to light most situations … but it can also cause all kinds of problems. If the sun itself is in the frame, the intense light can overwhelm the other compositional elements.
Anticipating the sun’s position and the scheduled timing of a shot is key.
The same location, but from a different angle, presents a completely new interplay of light and shadow, at different times during the day.
Careful planning for each day of the shoot means that we can capture the shots we want when the light is just right.
