Yesterday in the afternoon (bright sunshine) I was asked to do some outdoor portraits of three young girls; two of them very blonde... We had the sun in their backs, I used a reflector to illuminate their faces, even addional flash to avoid too strong contrasts in their faces. But of course parts of their hair (those that were hit by the sun) were extremely overexposed, even completely white. I know there are situations in which this cannot be completely avoided and where it's better to choose another location, or another time of the day, but I didn't have many options yesterday; there was only that one chance to take the pictures.
Any suggestions how to deal with such situations (blonde persons, sunshine) in the future?
One way is to turn it to black and white I think. I have a snapshot of my son which was very over-exposed. Turned B&W and the photo looks more interesting. Am going to find it and attach below...
@viranod : Oh yes, that looks pretty good; the overexposure makes this really interesting. Will try that with my shots, even though I think the grandma of the three girls, who asked for the pictures, prefers the color versions.
@shadowdancer Oh ok... This is more of a remedy than intention. The SOOC looks very pale, lack details. In B&W I have to boost saturation/contrast quite a lot!
@shadowdancer If you shot in RAW you should be able to recover some detail and adjust the overexposed parts of the shot. Open the file in your RAW converter and play around with the highlights and exposure.
RAW is great for recovery which would be impossible with a JPEG file.
@shadowdancer Yes, This is wonderful. Actually I posted one last year, not as cool as this of course.. Hope you don't mind if I post another shot. Also long shutter speed for a day shot, 1/6 :-)
maybe if the sun is too harsh and you have both a reflector and flash move into the shadows, next to a building or under a tree, also if you can not find shade or really like a particular location maybe invest in a diffuser to soften the light
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@mra
RAW is great for recovery which would be impossible with a JPEG file.
@viranod : Yes, I agree, just converting into b&w looks dull, but going up with the contrast makes it more interesting. It's what I did here:
Guess I should try something like that with the girls' pictures also. :-)