Oh me oh my does Grace love her some sun flare. Sun flare is the effect where the sun casts a warm glowing light all over your subject where they look like they’re being bathed in sun rays. See the photo above for an example.

Sun flare can be achieved in a fairly simple way. You’ll need a few things to get this effect:

1. A camera

2. The sun

3. The golden hour (aka when the sun is low to the horizon)

Start off by positioning your subject directly between yourself and the sun. However, you don’t want to shoot this way because your images will turn out as silhouettes. Once you have the subject in between you and the sun, take a few small steps directly to your left or the right so that you’re in line with your subject but the sun is either slightly to the left or the right of your subject {whichever looks best}. Make sure to adjust the angle if necessary to ensure that the subject isn’t too bright or not visible at all. Now, select your desired aperture and then adjust your shutter speed so that the light meter arrow shows the image to be one to two stops to the right {a.k.a. overexposed} of the center mark in your viewfinder {make sure to put your camera into spot metering or partial metering mode} so that their skin and outfit will be properly exposed. Your light meter should look something like this:

Make sure the arrow on your light meter is to the right of the center mark in your viewfinder. Some experimentation with the shutter speed will be needed to properly expose for your subject.