How About Those Sun Flares? Yay or Nay?

As temps cool, we photogs may find ourselves in the house more, and not out shooting as much. Some of us take the time to revisit photo shoots from the previous season.

While looking at some images from a late summer shoot, I notice how bright the setting sun is in many of the pictures.  I also noticed that a lot of the images contained those uncalculated streaks of light; lens flares, or sun flares.

Over the years, I have learned that photographers will either LOVE or HATE sun flares in their photos! No in-between!

Sun flares are caused by too much light getting into your camera lens because you’re pointing your camera directly at the sun. I don’t use a lens hood, so getting bright light spillage is common for me. Or perhaps I was experimenting during a late day shoot. Regardless, what may NOT be common for me is if I like the results or not.

In addition to shooting into the sun, shooting later in the day (think sunset or Golden Hour) will also likely get you those sun flares. Did you want them? Did you look at your images and become annoyed? Some photographers simply may not find those flashes of light appealing to the eye, or just may not want that accidental glare and in their pictures.

But why not?

Sometimes sun flares can “ruin” a photo by blocking  or distracting from the main subject.

At other times the distortion of light can make an image appear hazy and not crisp.

On the other hand, the random bursts of light and color can make your photo artsy and unique like the image below:

The sun flare in the above image gives the portrait "flair"...Okay, okay! I couldn't resist!!! 😆

Were you shooting the sunset or a different subject? If something else was your focus, and you caught a sun flare, think twice before just deleting that image. Take a good look at it. You may now see that odd flare as a “happy accident”!

So do you love or hate lens flares? Do you purposely incorporate them in your work? 

Let me know in the comments!

All images © Ayana T. Miller