Cinematic Headshots in the Afternoon
Pros and Cons of Shooting Cinematic Headshots in the Afternoon
Written on the 8th of December, 2022
After my video interview with my friend, Falah AlHajraf, I asked him if I could take cinematic headshots of him. I was not planning for this, and I didn’t scout a location. I went to the parking spaces outside of my home and started shooting. It was in the afternoon, and the sun was harsh, so we had to shoot under the shade; otherwise, there would be spots of unflattering direct light on this face.
Even though my perfect timing for shooting headshots was one hour before sunset, the afternoon shoot proved to be quite lovely. The background was very bright, but this served to my advantage as I could expose for the background using a higher shutter speed to achieve the brightness that I found pleasing.
The catch of shooting in the afternoon is that in order to do that, I had to use high-sync speed, which consumed a lot of the battery power of the Speedlight. Scouting a location before a shoot to find a shaded spot or setting up a shade is essential. Otherwise, the harsh sun can cause unflattering light on the subject, especially in the afternoon. Lastly, the disadvantage of shooting in the afternoon is the weather temperature. The weather can be pretty intimidating, especially in the afternoon, when the temperature can reach high degrees, causing me and my subject to be uncomfortable.
I will definitely shoot in the afternoon in my future cinematic headshots.
The Gear I Used
