Natural light is free, flattering, and completely out of your control, which is why outdoor portraits can look wonderful one minute and harsh the next. The difference is rarely the camera. It is where you place the person relative to the sun, and whether you notice the background before you press the shutter. A few placement habits solve most outdoor portrait problems.
Never put harsh sun straight into the face
Midday sun from above creates deep shadows under eyes and brows, and makes most people squint. Instead, turn the person so the sun is behind them or to one side, and use a reflector, a white wall, or even a light-coloured pavement to bounce a little light back into the face. If the sun is behind the subject, expose for the face, not for the bright sky, and accept that the background may become bright; that bright background often looks pleasant as a soft, glowing backdrop. Check the eyes closely on the camera screen, because a portrait fails if the eyes are in hard shadow.
Open shade is your most reliable friend
Open shade means shade that is open to the sky, such as the shaded side of a building, a porch roof, or a large tree canopy with sky visible beyond it. Light there is soft, even, and kind to skin, and it avoids the colour casts of deep, enclosed shade. Place the person near the edge of the shade, facing the open sky, so the light falls evenly on the face. Avoid dappled light through leaves on the face, which creates bright spots that are hard to retouch naturally. Move a metre or two and the problem often disappears. related guide shows how a full portrait session is planned, from brief to delivery.
Watch the background at every position
Before shooting, look behind the person for poles, signs, or bright patches that appear to grow from the head. A step left or right, or a slightly lower camera angle, usually fixes the problem without moving the person at all. Try both horizontal and vertical frames, and photograph a few expressions in each position before moving on, so you are not chasing light and posing at the same time. In golden hour, the last hour before sunset, light becomes warm and directional, and it rewards a slower pace and fewer positions. another guide in this category covers how to direct people who feel awkward in front of the camera, which matters even more outdoors, where there is no studio wall to hide behind.
After the session, note which light directions worked at that location and at that time of day. Outdoor light changes with the season, and a short note turns a lucky golden-hour portrait into a repeatable plan.