Shooting in hard natural light can be extremely difficult, especially when you’re photographing bright, white clothing. Join me in breaking down how I got the shot, and pick up some tips for shooting a similar image!

This video serves as the launch of my new YouTube channel, DaveOverThere, In this video, I do a brief rundown of how I got the shot, and I breakdown my thoughts and motivations for the location, the outfit, and the model. I wanted this shoot to look like an ad in a magazine, so I absolutely loved the Michael Kors bag the model, Ashley Doe, brought along.

The most difficult part of the shoot was exposure. If I underexposed to preserve the highlights, I’d crush the blacks, and if I overexposed to protect the shadows, I would lose the highlights. Thankfully, I have disciplined myself in learning my Fuji X-T3s limitations and knew exactly how far to overexpose it. 

Post-production was where the real fun was, and you can take a peek at a before and after here.

What did you think of the breakdown? I hope you learned something. If you’ve taken images in similarly difficult conditions, I’d love to see them below!