Falling in Love with Flare (and How to Photograph It)

I’m going to make a confession: I’m a sun flare junkie. I love turning my camera toward the sun, catching just enough of the light in my lens, and pressing the shutter once I know that rainbow swirl is locked in the frame. It makes me giddy.

Last spring, I was in the woods photographing a client late in the afternoon. She wore a crown of baby’s breath and looked amazing. I had her stand with her back to the sun, told her how to position her body and hands, then said, “What I really want is to get some great flare here.” Her reponse: “What’s that?”

My immediate response was, Wait, doesn’t everyone love flare like I do? But I explained it to her, that it’s what happens when light enters directly into the camera lens, that it creates these beautiful swirls and rainbows in the frame. She just shrugged.

As my photography style has evolved, I’ve never lost my love for flare. Whenever I can, I go for it. It makes the hour after sunrise and before sunset distracting. That’s when the most light floods my house, in the morning through the east-facing back of the house, then later through the west-facing living room windows as the sun goes down.

I’ll put anything I can between my camera and the sun – my kids, flowers, photography clients. Like I said, I’m a junkie. Which, I admit, means I can go a little overboard. I’m learning that less is more with sun flare. But I still love it.

It took me a while to get the hang of capturing sun flare. Letting light directly into the lens can be a bit tricky. But I have few tips that have helped me:

If you’re using a DSLR, shoot in manual. This is the best way to control flare. If you shoot in auto, your camera will compensate for all that light by making the photo darker. You have to adjust your settings and tell the camera how to expose the image in order to capture flare. A slower shutter speed will give you more flare.

Use spot metering. If you’re shooting in manual, you can spot meter or you can wing it like I usually do. I either tilt my camera so the sun is no longer pouring directly into the lens, or I use my hand to block the sun (like a visor), and meter off my subject. I choose my settings, but I always overexpose by one or two stops to make sure enough light is entering the frame when I let the sunlight into the lens.

Capture flare when the sun is low. You can get flare any time of day, but it’s easiest when the sun is near the horizon line.

Don’t point the camera directly at the sun. Angle it slightly, so you can position the flare to the right or left of your subject. You don’t want the flare to distract from your subject, especially when photographing someone’s face. It takes some practice, but you can see flare through the lens (usually as light blobs) and place it accordingly by tilting the camera slightly.

If you’re using a camera phone, play around with positioning until the flare looks good to you. This is a bit of guess-and-check because you have less control over the phone. I usually try tilting the phone a bit to the left or right, and up or down, to see how it affects both the streams of light and the flare. You can lock and adjust your exposure by tapping and holding your finger on the screen for three seconds, then scrolling up to increase the exposure or down to decrease it.* This way the camera doesn’t compensate for all that light.

The best tip I can give is to have fun. Seriously, this is supposed to be fun and part of that fun is figuring it out. That’s the way I learned, by simply trying and trying again. The results can be magical. So, get out there and give it shot (pun intended).

*On the iPhone, not sure about other phones.

**This post is dedicated to Beth, who has dubbed me the Queen of Flare. I started writing her an email about my approach to shooting flare, but felt it was better suited as a blog post. So, here you go, my friend. I wish I we could go shoot into the sun together!