I was going to rave about Nikon’s new lenses but the lenses don’t even matter if you can’t find good light. I’ll walk you through the process of the first shot. I knew the lens I wanted to use, the 85mm Nikkor 1.8 S. This is dubbed a portrait lens for the amount of magnification it produces. 85mm+ is always great for portraits cause of the compression, it brings backgrounds closer than they seem and helps produce a photo with minimal distortion.

I saw the trees were a wonderful color but the leaves make it busy. I can reduce the tress to just their color and a softer pattern by shooting f/2. Next I consider the position of the sun. I know shooting with the sun directly hitting the models face would produce harsh shadows. Not what I wanted. Typical rule is to put the sun behind the model and expose for the shadows. I know I would be losing detail in the highlights but that’s fine, you can’t really have your cake and eat it when I comes to finding an exposure w/o flash. Lastly, to hide the busyness of chairs and garbage cans, I shot from a lower angle. There’s a bit of posing in there too but this is what runs through my head when presented with a scene. Don’t be afraid to try shooting in the sun either, you never know, it might be the style you we’re looking for.

Out of all the locations from this two day shoot, the Financial District of Toronto offered the most interesting light. If you head out there on a day with no clouds, the sun does some magic—it could be black magic, I don’t know—but the reflecting sunlight creates some beautiful lighting effects and colours depending on what it’s bouncing off of. The Financial District is one of my top #streetphotography spots for this very reason—that is of course until security asks you to leave.

Pro Tip: go there without a flash and a small mirrorless camera and they won’t care.