When you shoot with your camera pointing into the sun, sun flare is often the result. Sun flare is the blotch of light in the bottom right of the photograph below. It is there because the sun is in the top left of the photo and I was pointing my camera right at it. Sun flare is, technically speaking, a bad thing. Top quality lens are even designed to prevent it. But some people love it! Some people shoot with that in mind, and some people add it to their images in Photoshop! (Yes you can do that! And I did not do that here.)

I think a little sun flare is okay. I don’t want it all of my images, generally speaking I might only include one in a gallery of photos to my client, if that. But what I do love is backlighting! Backlighting is when the light source is behind your subject. If the sun is directly behind, or close to your subject you will get flare with backlighting. But if backlighting is off to the side a bit more, you will get lovely lighting that adds a nice soft glow to your subject. This is what I love! The photo above is more washed in sunlight and sort of dreamy, but the photo below is more my style.

As a side note, I find sun flare and shooting into the sun easier with less expensive equipment. These were shot with my “nifty fifty” which is the cheapest lens you can buy.

So what do you say, do you like the top or the bottom photo better?