The Natural Light Portrait Book

Use a Black Reflector on Cloudy Days

There’s a real benefit to shooting outdoors on cloudy or overcast days: you don’t have that harsh, direct sunlight. But, there’s also a real downside and that is the light is usually very flat and boring. You don’t have the all-important shadows you get with the directional light of sunlight, but that’s when a black reflector is so incredibly helpful. Just put it right up beside your subject and it creates those missing shadows, so your portrait can still have depth and dimension even on overcast days. Take a look at the shot above on the left—it was taken under an overcast sky and the light is very flat. Now, ...