Outdoor headshots: the time of day matters more than the place
Many guides recommend a sunny day and also warn against direct sunlight. Together that is hard to follow, because it never says when the sun is too high. We picked a working threshold and calculated when it applies in Germany, month by month.
The threshold: 30 degrees of sun altitude
The higher the sun, the more steeply its light falls: the eye sockets darken and the nose throws a hard shadow toward the mouth. Where exactly that becomes a problem depends on the face, the season and the surroundings, and there is no official limit. We use 30 degrees of sun altitude as a practical rule of thumb, not as a standard. For the table below we calculated the sun's altitude for Berlin, at 52.5 degrees north, with a standard solar-position formula. Treat every time as accurate to about ten minutes.
On August 15, the sun in Berlin passes 30 degrees at about 09:15 and drops below it again at about 17:05. The window stays closed for roughly seven hours and fifty minutes, which is exactly the part of the day when most people think of going outside for a photo. The same calculation gives about 7.8 hours for Hamburg and 8.1 hours for Munich, so across Germany the difference is around twenty minutes.
Further south, the sun climbs higher and the midday window stays closed longer. The test that works at any latitude is the shadow test in the checks below.
Midday sun. Compare the hard shadows here with the softer, more even light in the opening image.
The monthly table
This table lists altitude and time windows for Berlin on the 15th of each month. Times are local: CET until 28 March, CEST from then until 25 October.
| Month | Sun's highest point | Passes 30 degrees | Usable outdoors |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 16° | never | all day |
| February | 24° | never | all day |
| March | 35° | 10:22 / 14:11 | until 10:20 and from 14:15 |
| April | 47° | 09:39 / 16:35 | until 09:35 and from 16:35 |
| May | 56° | 08:44 / 17:22 | until 08:40 and from 17:25 |
| June | 61° | 08:25 / 17:49 | until 08:25 and from 17:50 |
| July | 59° | 08:38 / 17:46 | until 08:35 and from 17:50 |
| August | 52° | 09:16 / 17:07 | until 09:15 and from 17:10 |
| September | 41° | 10:15 / 15:48 | until 10:15 and from 15:50 |
| October | 29° | never | all day |
| November | 19° | never | all day |
| December | 14° | never | all day |
The surprising line is not June. It is the five months from October to February where the sun never reaches 30 degrees. There is no window to hit because the whole day is one. That runs against the usual advice: judged by sun height alone, November is an easier month for an outdoor headshot in Berlin than July. The drawback of winter is the length of the day. In mid-December Berlin has about seven hours and forty minutes of daylight, and the low sun comes with cold hands and often a grey sky.
Four checks on location
The time of day is the first hurdle, not the last. These four questions can be answered without any equipment, and each has a threshold you can see.
The four lighting positions that work outdoors
All four positions have the same goal: soft light in the face without the sun stabbing in from above. They differ in where that soft light comes from.
Open shade. Stand in the shadow of a building, an archway, or a balcony and face the bright open side. The sky in front of you becomes a large soft light source while the roof above removes the steep sun. Test: hold your flat hand horizontally above your eyes; if the picture improves, you are standing wrong.
Overcast sky. Full cloud cover is the largest softbox you can get. The flat light keeps the eye sockets open, and on such a day the time no longer matters. The price is a pale sky, so this light suits a wall or a facade better than open sky. Test: if your own shadow has no sharp edge, the cover is thick enough.
Low sun from the side. In the last hour before sunset the light comes almost horizontally and models one side of the face warmly without shading the eyes. In summer this is the only position in which direct sun is usable at all. Test: your shadow on the ground is at least 1.7 times as long as you are tall.
Backlight with a bright surface in front. The sun sits behind you and puts a bright rim around hair and shoulders. So the face does not become a dark area, it needs something bright in front of you that throws light back: a light house wall, a sandstone facade, or light asphalt. Test: take one picture with and one without the bright surface; without it you turn gray.
What the backdrop says about you
An outdoor background is never neutral, because it always claims a place. A blurred park from a real outdoor photo often looks nice, but its light rarely matches the indoor logic of a professional profile. The color side of the question is covered in headshot backgrounds.
| Backdrop | Fits | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Glass facade, office building | business, administration, consulting | works almost anywhere |
| Exposed concrete, smooth wall | engineering, construction, architecture, trades | calm enough to stay sharp in the picture |
| Stairs, courtyard, passage | creative roles, media, agencies | lively, needs clear distance behind you |
| Green, park, field | environment, agriculture, renewables | only with a real connection to nature in the role |
| Street café, pedestrian zone | hardly any role | passers-by and signs pull the eye away from the face |
| Beach, vacation scene | none | reads as a vacation picture |
What professionals bring outdoors
Photographers commonly add fill light outdoors, with a flash or a reflector, to lift the shadows. The finished picture does not show it. Whoever goes out with a phone and no fill light is therefore not doing the same thing as a photographer, but something harder. The consequence is not to give up. It is to look for the lighting position instead of correcting it afterwards, and that is what the time of day is for. Where the location itself is the point, a photographer is the better choice.
Where an AI headshot takes this over and where it does not
An AI headshot takes the weather and the clock out of the picture. In the app, the Outdoor City style (described there as dynamic, urban, daylight) is part of the paid packages, and you can try the free first photo with the Business Studio, LinkedIn Modern or Dating Authentic style first. Your selfie still needs good light, so the guide to taking a headshot at home covers how to take it at a window.
What AI does not deliver is proof that you stood at a specific place. If the picture must show a real location, that is a photographer's job on site. Cutting yourself out of a phone photo and pasting in a new background is not the same thing either: edges and halos remain at hair and shoulders, and the light direction of the original conflicts with the light logic of the new background.
Outdoor headshots: common questions
Is an outdoor headshot professional enough for a conservative field?
There is no rule that settles it, and opinions differ by employer. If you are unsure, use a calm facade or a plain wall instead of a nature backdrop, which keeps the picture close to a studio portrait. Wear what people in the field wear to work.
What is the best time of day in summer?
From May to August the sun in Berlin stands 52 to 61 degrees high at midday, well above our 30-degree threshold. Usable are the early morning and the evening. In Berlin in August that means until about 09:15 and again from about 17:10.
Why is winter better than summer?
From October to February the sun in Berlin never reaches 30 degrees, so the whole day is the window. The days are short, with about seven hours and forty minutes of daylight in mid-December, and the weather is less predictable.
Is a phone enough for an outdoor headshot?
For light, yes; for a blurred background only with distance. The small lens of a phone produces hardly any real blur, so portrait mode computes it, and you often see that computation at hair and glasses frames. Find a smooth surface rather than relying on the blur.
Outdoor or studio?
A studio makes the light independent of the hour. Outdoors you buy a real place at the price of a time window. For conservative fields a calm facade keeps the difference small.