Est. 2012 | Colorado Springs, Colorado and Charlottesville, Virginia wedding & family photographer

I think it’s so interesting to compare photos taken on the same day, same direction, but at different times. As you know, I recently did a mini session day for those who were looking for a quick Christmas card photo. 🙂 I chose out this beautiful Christmas tree farm because of one of its beautiful features of having the mountain scape in the backdrop. Since this is what sold me, I felt the need to work the mountain scape into everyone’s mini session. I knew that once the sun started to rise, I would have to be strategic with my positioning. As a rule of thumb, I never have my clients face towards the direction of light to avoid squinty eyes.

I thought it would be interesting to share how I was able to work with the same backdrop at different times of the day. I didn’t bring extra equipment with me to make this work, I used my surroundings.

7:15 a.m. – 7:45 a.m.
No worries about the sunlight here. Neutral lighting! The sun was starting to rise … not to mention, it was 17 degrees out when we started! BRRRR!
7:45 a.m. – 8:15 a.m.
Sun is up! I found a space that sheltered them from the harsh sunlight, but can still photograph towards the mountain scape.
8:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
You can see how harsh the lighting is at this point just based on the trees in the backdrop. Thank goodness for surrounding trees to block the light! I was able to still photograph them towards the mountains with the sun rising in their direction.
9:15 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
The sun is definitely up and I had to really work strategically at this point because the shadows were shortening. I had them get really close to the tree to block the lighting. If I didn’t do this, the sun would be hitting them 100%. Having placed them in shadow creates nicer skin tones between highlights and shadows.
2:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
The sun started to set towards the mountain scape … but still a little harsh being the time of the day. I had to angle my clients and myself so I was able to get the mountains in the backdrop and not have a sun flare in the photo.
2:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
I loved how this time of lighting treated like a hair highlight lighting. It’s positioned high enough and at an angle where I’m able to have their bodies in neutral lighting and have the sun backlighting them.
3:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
The sun is starting to get closer to setting behind the mountains. Longer shadows in the photo from the trees, which is something we like as photographers. 🙂
4:15 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.
Sun is setting behind the mountains and creating the beautiful glow around my clients. No worries about harsh lighting at this point as everything is neutral in lighting. At this point, you can have the sun in the frame of the photo and it won’t show off a sun flare. 🙂