What I Want

focal length: 29 mm
shutter speed: 1/1600
aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 200
flash: none

I shot this at about 4pm on a sunny day. It’s tough to shoot when there is so much sun but I was grateful that it wasn’t high noon. To combat the squinted eyes, blown out highlights and harsh shadows I found that shooting my subject when she was facing away from the sun helped enormously. Although I didn’t have a reflector or flash to throw more light onto her face, the light bouncing off the sidewalk and grass blades seemed to be sufficient. The problem with shooting with no fill light while your subject is facing away from the sun is that to properly expose your subject, you may end up having an overexposed background. For that, I brought back a bit of the grass in post processing by adjusting the saturation and luminance of the greens using Lightroom. So have your subject facing away from the sun. They, for one, will appreciate not having to stare into that fiery ball of light.

Stacy challenged us this week to show her what we want. The answer for me was simple. I want my family to be happy, healthy and surrounded with love.

What I Want

focal length: 70 mm
shutter speed: 1/2000
aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 200
flash: none

Laura is a Vancouver wedding and portrait photographer. Visit laurahana.com.