Lighting can really make or break a photo session, and being able to adapt to all sorts of lighting scenarios really sets apart the pros from the phoning it in. While I am a huge fan of that yummy golden hour light, it can be tough to schedule a golden hour shoot for families with young kids who will be cranky if they stay up past their bedtimes just to get that “perfect shot.” 

So here are a few tips I use for when I am shooting in the midday sun. 

• Try to make sure the sun is behind your clients. We did this session at about 10 am, so I was able to fit in a few backlit shots before the sun was directly above us. 

• Find shade. We were in a fairly open park for this family session, so finding shade was tricky. I was able to find a house on the grounds that created some great shade.

• Don’t be afraid of full sun! This can be a scary thought for some photographers, but play around with full sun more often and when your settings are right, it can look spectacular.