Summertime Fill Flash

Summertime is such a great time to photograph outdoors. The sun stays high and bright for longer hours,which gives you more opportunity to shoot. One of the things that happens in this strong, bright light are deep shadows.  A deep shadow from a building on the side walk or on the side of a building is really interesting. But what if the deep shadow is on a face, especially where the eyes are?

I had this happen to me recently on a photo shoot in Dumbo, NY. I know that the sun is at it's highest pint of brightness and strength from 12pm-3pm. My client insisted on shooting from-12pm-4pm. So I brought my silver reflector and my speed flash. My model had heavy lidded eyes so when she faced me and the camera, her eyes looked like two black holes.
 
So I took out my silver reflector and tried to fill in her eyes. But my reflector was too far away to fill in her eyes, face and neck. I then attached my speed flash to hot shoe on the camera. I dialed the flash to minus 1/3rd. I fired off a test shot and there was too much light. I then dialed my flash down to minus 2/3rd's and the image was what I was aiming for-fill light on her face, eyes and neck without over powering the rest of the image.

The rule of thumb is to set your fill flash up to minus 1/3rd to full stop for high summertime light. If you are photographing a person, the tone of their skin can play a factor in your fill flash setting.
Late day or early morning summertime light is slightly different light, brightness and strength. You fill flash settings will be different in those situations. You will have to test your flash settings before shooting. Clothing or shiny surfaces can be highly reflective with light from a flash so your settings may have to be adjusted. Be sure to bring that silver reflector-you may be able to have the reflector close to the subject and use that bounce as your fill light. Bring your sun screen!