Journal
Colour at high noon
Everybody avoids the midday sun. For North Current’s swimwear, it was the whole point.
( Published )
( Category )
Technique
( Reading time )
4 min read
The usual advice is to shoot early or late. For Lifeguard Blue we did the opposite: every frame between eleven and two, when the sky is at its deepest blue and the shadows fall straight down.
Hard noon light flattens faces, but it saturates everything else. Red towers, blue fabric and wet skin all turn up to full volume.
Work with the shadows
With the sun overhead, eyes disappear under brows. So we hid them on purpose: sunglasses, cropped heads, bodies turned toward the light. The campaign became about skin, fabric and colour instead of faces.
I exposed for the brightest skin and let the shadows go deep. A reflector would have softened the pictures into something ordinary.
Keep the grade honest
Saturated pictures tempt you to push further. I did the opposite in the edit: brought the blues down a touch, kept the reds exactly as the camera saw them, and left the grain. The heat should feel real, not painted.
— Nora Steinmann, Zürich
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