Bright Sun, Strong Wind, and Just One Hour to Shoot

I recently had an amazing photoshoot on a beautiful set of stairs leading up to a church. The model, Kely, is always incredible to work with—she’s naturally photogenic and such a wonderful person. We only had two days to prepare, as she unexpectedly had to leave, so the planning was really quick—just about an hour of my time. I didn’t even get a chance to visit the location beforehand; I had to rely on Google Maps to find it online, since I didn’t know of any place with stairs and a church together. When we arrived, we managed to find parking, and it was 9 a.m.—the sunlight was already pretty harsh, which was intentional. However, it was so strong that I couldn’t really see on the camera’s screen—this made it incredibly difficult to get the lighting right, as I couldn’t tell if the exposure was balanced. The brightness was also a real problem for Kely—she couldn’t help but squint, and it was really difficult for her to keep a natural facial expression because the sun was just too intense. Instead of shining directly on the church steps, we ended up using the side stairs, so the sunlight was coming from the side—but sadly, the church wasn’t visible. Plus, it was really windy, so we had the side sunlight as the main light, a flash from the other side, flash as a rim light and we worked fast to balance it all. We only had one hour for the entire shoot—so we had to prepare everything, set up the lights, do test shots, shoot, and pack up—all in just one hour. Despite the challenges, the shots came out beautifully, and the whole session had this incredible energy.