If you are new to portrait photography, a cloudy bright day is the best kind of day to start shooting portraits. The light on a cloudy bright day is soft and forgiving.
A cloudy bright day has just enough clouds so you don’t cast a shadow, but not so many clouds that it is dark and gloomy. Sometimes you get cloudy bright light on a sunny day when just the right thickness of cloud passes momentarily in front of the sun.
Cloudy bright days give you soft light that is very flattering to human skin. I love cloudy bright days for portraits.
On cloudy bright days you should keep the cloudy sky out of your portraits.
Links
Portraits 2 – Sunlight Can Be Really Bad Portrait Light
Portraits 3 – Shoot On Cloudy Bright Days (this article)
Portraits 4 – On Sunny Days Use Open Shade