How does one best deal with shaded faces in bright sunlight?

Question

When photographing people in bright sunlight, parts of faces are often shaded by hats or by their own contours. This creates highly-contrasted faces, and either a very bright background or very dark faces.

Using flash doesn't always help, especially when photographing a large group (~10 people) from a little distance.

What's your solution for this common situation?

Answer

For me, I have reflectors which can be positioned (sometimes with help) so as to fill in the light on the subjects. There are some reasonable 5-in-1 options out there, I have a 43" version of one of them and it works very well, folding up to a pretty small package and giving lots of options for cooling or warming the light as needed.

If you don't have reflectors, but do have larger, bright, surfaces you use, then that too is an option. What it really boils down to is getting some of generally available light redirected to the place you want it and, for that, many reasonably reflective items will help a great deal if sufficiently large. Heck, it can even by some bristol board or shiny wrapping paper, I've done both.

Anyways, those are what I do and, to be honest, I prefer that sort of light over a flash anyways. Fill flash can harsh, especially when it is on camera, and so I prefer to avoid it.

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