Bonus Post!!

How lucky are you?!!  I just posted below, but all that talk of light and photography made me think of a cool little trick you might like to know about:

Whenever we film outdoor interviews at work, we try to schedule them for the morning or afternoon.  Occassionally though, schedules don't work out and we find ourselves shooting bang in the middle of the day. Obviously the light's quite harsh and the cameraman has his hands full bouncing and difusing light to try and make the image come off nicely (the best cameramen can do this really well).

The secondary problem we have though, is that the poor talent has a terrible time trying not to squint through all of that 'light' the cameraman's bouncing onto their faces to even out the bright light of the midday sun. And trying to speak to camera without squinting when your eyes insist, is a bit of an ordeal.

So here's the trick:  You close you're eyes, and face up towards the sun (ie. stare at the sun, but with your eyes closed).  Hold this for about 30 seconds, and then when you black back down and open your eyes, you'll find you don't need to squint much for the next little while.  When you start to squint again, just repeat the process.

This had made life at midday much simplier!