When on the road as a tourist, I often do not carry a reflector of flash. Now I am at a location with very strong sunlight and I want to take a photo of a companion in front of a nice scenery or building, the classic "we have been here" photo.
With very strong sunlight however, specially at a slight angle, I either get it into the person's eyes and they squint like crazy, or they are in the shade and their whole face is black.
Please note that I do not have aspirations to take a professional photo in such circumstances, but at least something acceptable.
Is there an easy trick to deal with that?
Answer
Here are some options, I've personally had both huge successes and miserable failures with all of those techniques so you have to choose the one that fits the situation best:
Find shade - A tree or a building that is just out of frame can do a very good job at preventing harsh sunlight (but you have to be careful not to blow up the background).
Use some random object as a reflector - I once got someone to hold a bright orange backpack right out of frame to provide warm fill light (reflector + CTO gel in a single object).
Any random object that happens to be there can be used walls, buildings, boat parts (as Esa Paulasto said), cars, street signs, anything (I don't remember where I've read it but some photographer said that tall overweight people in white shirts make great assistants because you can use them as reflectors).
Exposure compensation - Just raise the exposure compensation so the face is well exposed, everything will be very right but that's ok (as long as you don't blow the highlights) because you are in direct sunlight on a bright day, I've had very good results with this technique lately.
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