Ask photographers what light they pray for and most will say golden hour. But the glow people love in my portraits rarely comes from the hour alone — it comes from five small decisions, made in order, before I ever lift the camera.
1. Turn your sitter toward the biggest soft source
Outdoors, that means open shade facing the bright sky — a building shadow, a tree line, the shaded side of a porch. The sitter's face should catch sky, not sun. Indoors, it's the nearest large window, with the sitter angled forty-five degrees to it so one cheek carries a gentle shadow.
2. Shoot the last ninety minutes, not the last twenty
Everyone arrives for sunset and misses the good stuff. The ninety minutes before it give you modelling, direction and room to experiment; the last twenty give you a frantic sprint. Book the long window.
3. Befriend overcast days
A bright cloudy sky is the world's largest softbox — even, shadowless and kind to every skin tone. Colours saturate, squinting stops, and you can shoot facing any direction. Some of my favourite galleries were made under skies that looked like trouble.
4. Bounce what you can, flag the rest
A five-dollar white foam board under the chin lifts eye sockets in shade; a hand, a hat brim or a doorway edge blocks the stray highlight that ruins an otherwise perfect frame. Modifiers don't need to be expensive — they need to be present.
5. Meter for the skin, let the rest fall
Expose for the brightest important patch of skin and let backgrounds blow out or sink into shadow as they please. A glowing face against a dreamy, imperfect background beats a technically perfect exposure with a muddy expression every time.
“Light first, lens second, settings a distant third. Get the first right and the others forgive you.”
— Studio notebook, page one
Try one habit per shoot rather than all five at once. And if you'd rather skip the homework, that's quite literally what a portrait session is for — I bring the foam board.