I have a new camera to play with (and get to grips with!) so decided to take my youngest on a stroll around the little streams and brooks in our town, complete with wellies for paddling and mummy’s big sun hat. In classic three year old fashion, she was full of enthusiasm at 8.30am, but by the time we’d done the school run with my eldest she just wanted to play Duplo. And then a few rounds of Mario Kart (yep, she’s three and plays Mario Kart, I’m that mum). And then she wanted a snack, of course. Many pleadings and ‘compromises’ (all on my part) later, we were finally outside, at pretty much the worst time of the day for photography – midday. Anyone who has ever taken – or been in – a photo at midday knows this is not an easy or friendly light to work with. I did my best with a big shady hat (downside – face in shadow) and found as much open shade under the trees as I could. And we got some really lovely photos.
Now comes the controversial statement – I actually quite like the strong contrast in some of these ‘harsh sun’ photos at the beginning of the post and at the end, when she is in direct sunlight. The white highlights against the dark shadows and also the dappled light that falls on her through the trees when she’s playing in the water. I know ‘technically’ it’s not great to work with midday sun, and aesthetically not always pleasing, but I sort of like how these photos give me that ‘feeling’ of midday sun, like I can feel the time of day from how harsh the light is around her, I can feel the pockets of cool shade we found on a bright, sunny day, and that the cold water she was quickly soaked in had pretty much dried up by that hot ‘unflattering’ sun by the time we had walked home. That we were enjoying a really bright, sunny day in a country where we so often moan about the lack of it! Overall some lovely memories to cherish of her last few weeks of being three (and oh, how I am clinging on to them!) and I’m pretty sure she enjoyed sloshing around in welly boots full of water too :-).
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