How to Film Outdoors: Mastering Natural Light in Cinematography

In this episode, I will share my personal experience in planning lighting setup and working with production design while filming outdoors using only natural light. We'll explore how to maximize the beauty of sunlight, take advantage of interesting locations, wardrobe choices and colors. Let's break it all down using the example of my short film production. Filming outdoors is an unpredictable process. It's nearly impossible to predict the exact weather conditions in advance. Whether you'll have bright sunshine or an overcast sky on the day of shooting is largely a game of chance, even if you prepare based on the weather forecast. However, a few weeks before the shoot, you can get a general idea of the expected weather conditions. In my case of shooting short film, based on this, I was fairly confident that I would have a sunny day during filming. That was great because it allowed me to save time on set by avoiding the need for artificial lighting or additional equipment rentals. The sun is an incredible natural light source but working with it means time is limited. The earth moves relative to the sun and the lighting conditions that were perfect an hour ago may have already changed. This requires careful planning, ensuring that each shot is scheduled according to the movement of natural light. During location scouting, I always track the sun's trajectory. Filming in winter has a significant advantage. The sun stays relatively low, making it easier to use as a sidelight, backlight or fill light. And this is not the case in summer, where the midday sun sits high in the sky, creating harsh overhead lighting. This kind of lighting is difficult to work with, which is why filmmakers often avoid shooting wide shots during midday. The undeniable advantage of sunlight is that the contrast between light and shadow creates a stunning difference of several stops in exposure outside. These conditions help achieve strong light-shadow contrast, making the image more three-dimensional and visually striking. So, in this scene, you can see that everything was filmed in a fairly open space, with snow reflecting the powerful sunlight directly toward the character. To create a strong contrast, I asked the lighting crew to block out the skylight and snow reflection to create shadows on the character on the foreground position. If there had been no snow on the ground, there wouldn't have been a need to lay black fabric as snow has a high reflectivity, which results in excess unwanted light hitting the character. By cutting off excess light using a 12-foot frame in the foreground and black fabric on the snow, we achieved depth and contrast in exposure between the foreground and background. The backlighting from the sun here is just a personal preference. I like keeping the sun behind the characters in wide and medium shots because it outlines everything in the frame beautifully, you know. Most of the work is done during pre-production. I always try to determine my shooting angles in advance and give myself some time during location scouting to wander around, search for interesting angles and compose the shots. With photos and videos of the potential shooting location in hand, I immediately dive into the creative process, seeking inspiration and defining the mood for lighting and image stylization. I lay out all the captured images and footage in editing and overlay them with music from the audio library to make a draft editing of the future filming. This helps me set the mood of the film through music. And why audio platform? Sadly, because I often hear the same tracks on popular filmmaking YouTube channels. Everyone pulls great and trending music, but from the same sources. What I love about audio platform is that the tracks have cool quality and style. They don't sound cheap. So if you use my audio link and discount code, you can get your first year's subscription to Audio Pro for just $59. And that's 70% off for access to all of their music, sound effects and AI features. So make sure to use my discount code because you won't find that price anywhere else on their site. Before filming the characters, I always make sure to collaborate with the costume designer, if there is one on the team. When working with clothing, I strive to find a cinematic and visually interesting look, drawing inspiration from Pinterest references or movies. I want to say that a well-coordinated and stylish outfit can express the character's personality while also looking great on camera. The focus isn't necessarily on making the character flashy or extravagant, but rather on how the clothing interacts with the camera and lighting. The question I always ask myself during pre-production is, does the wardrobe add individuality to the character? Does it look good in the frame? Or maybe should I use one, two or three colors in the costume design? So this approach helps maintain a consistent visual style throughout the film. If you're aiming for a particular color palette in your film, wardrobe becomes a powerful tool to reinforce it. Since I often combine directing and cinematography in my projects, it's crucial for me to find actors I can work comfortably with. And I would say that finding such people isn't easy, you know. But reviewing video auditions, not just photos, reveals a lot about their behavior, tone of voice and physicality. So through video I select actors I'd feel confident working with. Beyond speech and performance, I also focus on distinctive and expressive faces. A script can be played in completely different ways, depending on the actor. That's why casting the right performer is essential. Their appearance, experience, charisma and voice can captivate the audience, regardless of how you light the scene, design the set or what camera you use. And I would say that in cinema, these technical aspects are important, but they remain secondary to a powerful performance that makes the audience invest in the story. Let's analyze the last scene we shot at sunset. Continuing to make the most of natural sunlight, we had about 15 minutes left before it completely disappeared to shoot a scene from three different angles. Since we ran a bit behind schedule by the end of the day, I didn't have time to film all three shots with the sunset light. So I quickly captured the wide shot with the stunning backlight from the setting sun, and I only had time for two takes. Additionally, to enhance the depth of the image, you might notice that we used haze in the background to create atmospheric perspective. And this thing helps add extra depth beyond just light and shadow as seen in this scene. By the time we moved to close-ups, the sun had already set, so we used a 2500 watts light at about 10% power. This allowed us to match the brightness of the sky at the moment when the sun dipped below the horizon. The direct light was quite harsh, so we softened it with a 1.25 density light grid. This level of diffusion doesn't stand out in his artificial lighting and doesn't create excessive lens flares. As a result, both the female and male characters had a warm light source on their close-ups, mimicking the sunset. I'm always open to collaboration on film or TV projects, so feel free to email me. If you need additional educational materials on cinematography, visit my website.