Portrait Studio Photography: Window Light Portrait Techniques

I didn’t even pay attention to those huge north facing windows when I first looked at our current studio space. It wasn’t until we downsized our studio and moved into a funky old building, that I really discovered the magic of window light portraits. These windows are about four feet wide and six feet high, and are always in the shade.  Better yet, the sun hits the light beige buildings across the street and that sweet soft  light kicks up the intensity of the light coming in the windows. Because the windows are so large, relative to the subject, the light has a very soft shadow edge with a nice gradation of tones from highlight to shadow.  Because  the windows are north facing,  we never get direct sunlight.  It’s a pretty consistant soft light,  all day,  year round.  The  images that have been favorites of mine, and  of my clients, have been those taken with the light of these windows.

The cool thing is, this is not only the most beautiful light I can get for my indoor portraits,  it is the easiest to use as well. The only piece of equipment I use besides my camera is a reflector…..when I’m not too lazy to go find it.  I almost always shoot 90 degrees to the window,  so I have a strong direction to the light,  from the side.  I can have a senior looking into the camera and get a dramatic “split” lighting,  then have them look more toward the window,  creating a  ”short” style of lighting, as in the close up of the girl below.

In both of these images right above and below this paragraph, I wanted a higher lighting ratio to contribute to the sense of feeling of the subjects and  go along with the very directional lighting,  or contribute to the emotion of the subject and the emotional impact of the image.  So I chose not to fill the shadows with a bright reflector.  Since this room is fairly small and the walls are all very light, there is a fair amount of ambient light already providing some fill for the shadows.  If  it was a huge room,  I probably would have used at least a soft white reflector back from the subject to get this same lighting ratio.

I can move further into the room and reduce the contrast in the lighting if I want to.  Because the light disperses as it gets further into the room, the intensity decreases.  More of what was the “main” light, the light creating the highlight on the face has dispersed into shadow, actually increasing the value of the shadow side.  The end result is a somewhat lower lighting ratio, as in the image below.  Notice the shadow side of her face is lighter compared to the other images.

If you haven’t been doing it, try doing some nice window light portraits. I think you will be excited about the results.  Don’t forget to plan for your background. Consider everything in the scene and make sure it works in the image.  A distracting background will take impact away from a portrait.  Also,  don’t turn on room lights inside.  If you need to lighten the shadows some, use a reflector.  Finally,  always “custom white balance”  for the window light, using a grey card.

Until next time!  Michael