Shooting indoors with outdoor light

(Click on photos to enlarge)

The beauty of natural light that’s been altered by the windows, skylights, and open doors it passes through cannot easily be duplicated with strobes, tungsten, or LED lights. But the position and quality of this light can change quickly. So, if I’m going to be photographing in a subject’s home or apartment, the first thing I do when arriving is to check how and where the outdoor lighting is entering the house. If I find an area with interesting possibilities, I begin the photo shoot there. I’ll photograph quickly, doing as many setups as possible before the light changes.

As I was photographing, it was evident how fast the sunlight was moving. I asked Lilliana to be aware of this and to move her head and body as necessary to keep the single shadow just below her right eye. She did this perfectly.

​The sun coming through the various windows illuminated the five photos below. No light modifiers were used. Therefore, fairly dark, well-defined shadows were created. When setting up a shot for this type of lighting, I’m thinking: “How should the subject interact with the sunlight?” Usually, I’ll position them so the sunbeam is on or near their eyes, since that's where I normally want the viewer's eyes to go initially. Positioning the subject like this establishes the light’s presence and, had there been any question before, vigorously prods the viewer as to where their gaze should go. By the way, the extreme color and color variations in some of the following pictures were done in post-production.

​Here's Julianne posed by a railing, directly across from a window that had late afternoon light streaming in. My and the camera's focus were on her shadow. Her pose and positioning had to be precise for the silhouette to be sharp. The bright light on the wall and the dark areas beyond it frame her shadow, helping to emphasize its shape. The sunglasses were added primarily to protect her eyes, though they add a nice touch to the image. I have mixed feelings about how pointy her nose looks on the wall, but that does make the shadow more of a caricature, which I think works.

Another shadow image, but this time I eliminated the subject altogether. This, too, has the look of a caricature.

I'm not certain, but the window light appears to fragment into a few small patterns on Delbert's face - an advantage of light passing through a dirty window. 

​​It’s important to monitor the sky when shooting with outdoor illumination. Clouds rolling in can quash even the most spectacular light. If that happens, the question for me is how long to wait for the clouds to pass before moving on to another setup. If the lighting has been good up to that point, I’m willing to wait a while (perhaps many minutes). Then again, there've been many times when the break in the clouds never materialized, and I ended up wasting my time. A better solution might be to move onto another setup while also being ready to quickly reset and continue shooting should the sun reappear.

A white sheet over the window nicely diffused and softened the light, distributing it more evenly around the subject. The curves in the sheet also created some really neat, oddball light patterns.

The images below demonstrate the effect grossly overexposing the outside light may have on a photo. It can both hide an unattractive or distracting background (cars sitting on the street, for example) while bathing the subject in soft and diffuse illumination. 

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​Something I find exciting about light coming in through windows, skylights, open doors, and the like is that it's already present in the environment without me having to set up any of my own lights or light modifiers. Furthermore, this type of lighting often creates unique illumination possibilities I'd probably never come up with on my own.

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