I often find myself at weddings shooting indoors a lot. Whether it’s at a hotel, house, or indoors at a venue, knowing where the best light is and how to utilize it to the best of your ability will result in better photographs. I’ll show you some examples at the end of this post on how I’ve used natural light indoors.
Now, there are ways around this if there’s no indoor light…like using flashes, off camera flashes, and other special lighting equipment, but today’s post is specifically geared towards using natural light in indoor spaces.
1. Find the Light.
A window. A door. A skylight. Any of these objects should have some sort of light coming through. If the door is closed, open it! If the blinds are shut, open them! If there’s anywhere in your indoor space where you can see a shadow…boom. You’ve just found your light.
2. Background Awareness.
Now that you’ve found your light, what does your background look like? For me, I like a background that’s not too busy. By busy, I mean nothing that is drastic enough to take my eyes off of the subject I’m photographing…make sense? I hope so.
3. A Wide Aperture.
Now that you’ve found your light and know what your background looks like, it’s time to check our settings. This is more of a technical tip so I hope I don’t lose you.
A lot of introductory DSLR’s come with a kit lens. Something that looks like this:
I’ve highlighted the lens that this camera comes with because the type of lens we put on our camera effects how wide our aperture can be. Also known as the “f stop.” In this case, the widest aperture (lowest number) this lens can go is f/3.5. The wider our aperture is, the more light we can allow into our camera…which is GOOD for shooting indoors when we don’t have a lot of light. Still following me? So whatever lens you have, change your settings to the widest your aperture can go when you’re shooting indoors.
Another way to force light into your camera in dark places in addition to opening your aperture wide is changing the ISO. Your ISO says 125 and you’re shooting indoors? Bump that baby up! 800, 1000…however much you need for the scenario you are in. This will definitely help to brighten up your subject. I talked more about ISO in detail with examples HERE.
Tired of your stock lens? That’s okay. Here’s a list of great lenses under $500.
4. White Balance + CLASH OF LIGHTS
I know what you’re thinking…’Another technical thing? I just want to shoot!’ …And you will! This is a short, but important one to note. Usually I have my white balance set on auto and that does a pretty good job! However, I have software that I can use to correct my color afterwards in case I want to make any changes.
Here’s the doozy.
Be aware of any other lights on in the house that may cause a clash of lights. Yes, clash of lights. If your living room light is on in the house when you have your child next to the window, one side of your child will be beautifully lit and the other side of your child will have a different color tone to their skin. Not so pretty. 1. Either turn off any other lights that may affect your natural light. Or 2. Change that baby to black and white.
5. Examples
This is Sarah. I photographed her with the windows to her back. However the room was completely white so there was plenty of light bouncing of the carpet and walls to reflect back on her face.
This was shot inside a bedroom. My subjects were silhouetted using the doors for this bride and her bridesmaids.
This is Heather. She’s standing right next to a window in a hotel. There’s also one of those see through fabric layers on the windows curtains I shut in order to give the light a softer glow.
Inside of this house, was a tiny little window. I had this bride stand right where the light was.
This is my dog Leo. I opened our front door and took a photo of him. I of course had a treat so he could stay. He’s saying…Not another photo, dad!
Using window light for jewelry is also really nice. The window was probably 1 foot away from where this piece was laying.
The light source lighting Heather and Daniel here is a door directly to the left.
Another silhouette.
And last but not least, a behind the scenes look of myself photographing Alison. The result of what I was photographing is below.
I hope this helped if you were looking for tips on how to shoot with natural light indoors!
-Ryan
comments +