Photographs are strongest whenever the lighting and setup are controlled. This is not always possible, of course, particularly for activities such as athletic games, commencement and many other campus events. When possible, however, staged photographs with controlled lighting and environment will provide the strongest images, particularly when color is involved. With a little imagination, staged photographs do not have to look posed. You have only to look at the feature photographs in most publications today to understand that staged photographs are common.
Lighting is always the primary concern for the photographer.
As a result, certain nuances with both indoor and outdoor lighting can affect the quality of a photograph. Keep in mind, particularly for outdoor shots, that the time that might work best for your schedule is not necessarily the time that provides the best lighting. For outdoor, landscape or campus shots, the middle of a day is usually the worst time to shoot a photograph. The intense mid-day light creates deep, dark shadows which show up unnaturally on film. Film does not have the capacity that your eye has to adjust to the variations of intense light and deep shadows.