Have you ever looked at a photo you snapped on a sunny day and thought, "Hmmm, I look a little green around the gills"? That's likely due to colour cast. On bright days, light can bounce off green grass and cast a green hue onto your skin, especially under your chin. This can happen even if you're in the shadows but near a sunlit patch of grass or a vibrant building. The colour can reflect onto you, the subject. So, if you've ever been on a shoot with me and noticed a perplexed look on my face, it's because I'm trying to figure out how to eliminate that odd colour without disturbing the subject.

It can be straightforward to fix a colour cast with some fill light or a reflector, but that depends on your subject. A person might sit still while you use a reflector to bounce clean light onto their face, but a dog probably won't. Much of pet photography relies on chance when it comes to capturing the perfect pose. Not all pups are natural models; they might be squirmy or nervous, and a reflector could cause unwanted distractions. Often, I need to consider what's around me to avoid colour cast. Perhaps a sidewalk can bounce some light up, or if I'm in the shadows and the sun is hitting a nearby neutral-coloured building, I can position myself so that it acts like a reflector. Sometimes, it's easiest to fix the issue later in Photoshop.

You might not realize it, but there are usually a million thoughts running through my mind while I shoot. All the while, I'm trying to make pleasant chit-chat and engage my subject. Why am I sharing all of this? Well, it's quite interesting, and I want you to know what to pay attention to when taking your own images, whether with your phone or your camera. A little critical thinking can help you visualize your images before you even compose them. It's all in the details.

Here are a couple of examples of colour cast. As you can see, colour cast can happen in a studio with bright backgrounds. It's easier to control the setting with fill light, the angle of light, and reflectors, but it can still occur to some degree. Some colours are worse than others. This teal, for example, is one of the trickiest in studio settings.

The last images don't show colour cast, but the little dog did get some green paws from running in the dewy, freshly cut grass.