- Back lit
- Bright
- calm
- Center Framed
- full body
- holding each other
- Movement
- Rim Light
- Soft Light
- Sun flare
- sunny
- Sunset
- Wide
The story behind the image
Well, we were pretty stoked that we did. We met this couple at the Surf school and immediately thought they’d be awesome to be in front of our lenses. We had already met them a few days before, and so it was quite easy to just walk up and ask if they’d be keen to go for a little shoot one sunset. They totally went for it.
When we were walking through the village, we found this opening just as the sun was about to hide behind the distant houses and it let out this stunning golden flare. We seized the moment and let our couple play right here in this spot before moving on.
Directions
Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)
We had our guy hang out with his coconut as chilled as he could, while we asked our girl to move in and gently cuddle him from the side. We asked her to keep her one hand on his chest, and the other around his neck and to focus on each other. Even whisper something sweet here and there.
What did you say?
Guys the light here is stunning. [guy], hang tight just where you are and [Girl], if you came in from the side and embraced him while having your hand on his chest (demonstrated it to them) and the other around his neck. That’ll look stunning! And just enjoy that moment together – even whisper something to each other that will make you smile.
Tone of Directions
Calm
Composition
We chose to shoot this in portrait because there was a ton of ‘features’ of the village all around us and since the moment & the emotion between our couple was the main focus – we didn’t want anything to take away from that. We filled the frame about 4/5ths with our couple leaving just enough breathing room above them and to the sides. We are a bit regretful that we chopped off our guys feet though – we didn’t see that when shooting :(
framing
Center Framed
Focusing
Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)
Since shooting into the sun often causes problems with focusing, what we did was bend ourselves slightly lower than our couple so we could hide the sun entirely behind them then slowly moved back up to our composition while holding the focus and fired away.
Focus Mode
Single Shot Autofocus
Focus POints
Single Point
Focused on
The Guy's Face
Equipment &
Exif
Camera
Lens
Flash
Filter
1/400 @ f/2 ISO400 WB-Auto
The way the EXIF is written out follows the common photographic method (with the inclusion of White Balance at the end). Here it is broken down:
Shutter Speed @ Aperture ISO White Balance.
Light & Weather
We had our couple stand directly in front of where the sun was setting so we could let the sun peak over their heads and create this gorgeous golden flair. Since shooting into the sun means the side of our couple visible to us is completely in the ‘shade’, they had really a really soft skin to edit.
Light Type
Natural Light
Time of day
Sunset
Weather
Sunny
Editing Workflow
How did you edit this image?
To edit this shot, we added our protea preset but reduced a lot of the oranges, reds, and yellows as things became a bit too saturated. We reduced the luminance of the oranges quite a bit to try and give a more muted, tanned tone to their skins which were closer to their true color. We adjusted the usual exposure sliders to get the overall mood of the image and finally ended off with some light dodging and burning as well as a cheeky little sun enhancing radial filter.
Editing Software
Adobe Lightroom Classic
Preset Used
Challenges
The only challenge we had with this shot was focusing as shooting directly into the sun does cause problems for the camera.
Solutions
We solved it simply by lowering ourselves slightly to completely hide the sun behind our couple, focus, and then recomposed back to our initial composition while holding down the focus.
Location
Location Name
Paje Village
Location aDDRESS
Paje, Zanzibar, Tanzania
Loation Type
Village
Country
Tanzania
One thing this shoot taught us was to just go for it. Ask that cute couple if they’d be keen for a shoot and if they say no, well – no one was hurt. But if they say yes – then you’ve just landed up a fun little project. Just go for it.
