How to Capture Artistic Landscape Images under Full Sun

I haven’t met a landscape photographer to date that doesn’t enjoy some aspect of immersion in nature, and many of us, landscape photographers, became interested in landscape photography out of our time spent in and affection for nature.

The summer months are extraordinarily wonderful. I delight in the ease of summer. Gone are the days of multiple warm layers of clothing, woolly socks, heavy boots, snowshoes and winter outerwear. Instead, I pack up a few snacks, my light rain gear, throw on my hiking shoes, and I’m good to venture out into my favourite landscapes in search of a good dose of nature therapy and a pretty landscape scene.

Alongside the ease of summer comes long days filled with sunshine, which is also certainly a delight, but they don’t always offer those ideal sought-after landscape photography conditions.

Full sun photography with its bright highlights can easily blow out a camera’s dynamic range and produce deep dark contrasting shadows. Full sun is, I’ll be the first to agree, a little intimidating for many landscape photographers. But all does not have to be lost under full sun. It is completely possible to capture artistic landscape images in full sun.

Next to photography, hiking is one of my favourite enjoyment activities when I’m out in nature. However, most of my hiking occurs during daytime hours and not under the soft light of sunrise and sunset. So unless I want to hike trails under the darkness of predawn or post-sunset, then I’m going to have to embrace full sun conditions from time to time when I come across a landscape scene I want to capture with my camera.

The below image is an example of such an occasion. My daytime hike led me to the pretty falls pictured in the image. I was, of course, immediately drawn to the beauty of the wide-scale scene in which I photographed.

^{ISO 200 19mm, f10, 1/8 sec}

Now there’s nothing wrong with this image per se, and it’s what I’d expect for results under the full sun. Still, in my own journey as a landscape photographer, I also crave my version of what I perceive is artistry within my landscape images. Unfortunately, my above capture was not fulfilling the definition I have for artistry.

So I stood back and looked at the scene through my artist's eyes…carefully scanning the details that were in front of me, and then I saw it. In the upper left side of the waterfall were the most beautiful rays of light permeating through the forest and highlighting the water. There it was! The artistry I crave in my images was found even within a full sun landscape scene.

^{ISO 31 35mm f22 0.4 sec}

This summer, I encourage you to spend a little time looking for artistry under landscape scenes lit by full sun. Sometimes all you need to do is step back and scan a landscape scene for something that catches your artistic eye. If you do this, I bet you’ll find artistry even under the full summer sun.