How To Shoot In Harsh Lighting

Expose for your subject before you worry about your background.

Lightroom can do more for your background lighting than you think but bad skin tones just make for an unusable photo! Prioritize your subject.

Find shade.

Everyone wants super consistent lighting in photos which can be difficult during midday shooting! Find the least patchy spot of shade you can and put your subject there. Even if there's some sun patches like in the reference photo, you'll still come out with 80% more consistent photos by JUST utilizing shade!

Lean into shadows and embrace the cinematic look.

The midday lighting cinematic look is making a comeback as it can give photographers emotional photos just through the power of lighting. Find a spot with streaky, magical golden lighting and snap a few editorial posed photos there- they always turn out so fun! This photo was taken with a Black Pro Mist 2 filter and I would highly recommend!