I want to take my photos at noon - why not?

There are several questions I receive most of the time before every single photo session. One of them is “Can we schedule the photo set at 12, 1pm?” My quick recommendation is to move the photo set and make it either in the morning or in the afternoon. Now I’ll try to explain why. Auckland weather is very unpredictable and we can’t be sure about it in prior. People say if you don’t like the weather in Auckland just wait for 5 minutes. It’s so true! On the other hand we are planning the photo session several weeks in advance. How can we know what the weather will be? I’m not talking about rain - if it rains we’ll reschedule. But the key point is how sunny the session day is. If it’s cloudy it’s absolutely fine and we can take photos at any time. Clouds give us very soft beautiful light without harsh shadows and blown out lights. The light is very even and comfortable. It’s not too hot, not too bright. You don’t need to keep your shades on and you can open your eyes. 
Actually these are the best conditions for a photo session. 



If the day is bright and sunny (especially in the summertime) it might be hard to be outside during the day. The sun is so bright! You won’t be able to open your eyes properly without shades. You’ll want to squint and close your eyes to protect them from the sun. The contrast between the shadows and brightly lit parts will be huge. Dark parts will be even darker while the whites will be more white and blown out. Sometimes it’s not a problem. If we are shooting a fashion story hard light could be a feature. But speaking about maternity and family photography I prefer soft light and contrast. 


As a photographer I prefer to schedule all my photo sessions either in the mornings or right before the sunset. Pre-sunset hour (we, photographers, call it golden hour) is amazing! The light is so beautiful and soft. It makes your photos bright keeping the colours vivid but soft. And we can enjoy gorgeous sunset colours on the sky.