by Rolando Gomez
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Well don’t physically break your window, but find a window, any window, in your residence and study the light that comes through it. Figure out the best time of day to use it, and shoot some images with the natural daylight that filters through it. Toss in a flash and mix your light too. It's been said, "the eyes are the windows to our souls," well the windows in your home are a source of inspiration that will soothe your soul.
Digital photography, unlike conventional film, is very forgiving in the shadow areas and will soak-up that natural window light your subject reflects. Don't forget to use the white-balance settings on your camera to your advantage, change your white-balance to around 6000K (Kelvin) or the electronic flash or even the cloudy day mode, the results should be beautiful warm-toned images that appear to be the late evening sun—color that light, pure daylight is boring.
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Photograph of Kristen with Olympus E-1 Digital SLR and an Olympus, Zuiko Digital 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 lens, 1/50s @ F/4. Natural sunlight filtering through patio door window. White-balance set at 6000K internally on the E-1 Camera to fool the camera into believing the light was "cool" light, thus the camera compensates by adding "warmth" to the image, causing the beautiful warm tones--changing white-balance is like changing film emulsions in a conventional camera. |
Obviously, light coming through a window next to a shade tree will be much cooler light, or slightly blue, so bumping up your white –balance to 6,000 to 7000K will help balance that out too, though some cameras don't have numerical-specific Kelvin dial-in like the higher-end cameras do, so just select the cloudy day or "under the tree" white-balance setting.
Hopefully you have a digital camera that allows you to custom white-balance your camera—like I did with this image shot with the Olympus E-1 digital (DSLR) —I dialed the white-balance at 6000K or 6,000 Kelvin, but my light source was around 5000 to 5500K from the natural sunlight that came through the window. The camera was “tricked” into believing the light was cold, thus the camera added warmth making for a more pleasing image. In the scenario outlined in the previous paragraph with a window next to a shade tree, your colors will be less warm and probably more balanced—but I like it warm and I like as much light as I can get through those windows so I find windows with no shade trees next to them.
When shooting near a window or even patio door like the images above, try some images with the blinds drawn down (image on the right) but slightly open, then raise them fully-up and shoot without them. When they’re drawn down, the shadows created by the blades or slats, make for interesting Chiaroscuro. The key here is to make sure you have a bright day outside for the shadows to be defined—if the sun goes behind a cloud, the intensity of the light will be less and the shadows will disappear.
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| Photograph on the right is of Kelly. Kelly was lit with nothing but window light coming in from a bank of windows in a hotel gathering area, exposure was at 1/6th of a second, hand-held using a vibration reduction lens, shot digitally. The photograph on the left is a black & white of Candace, lit with natrual window light and mixed with artificial studio strobe light for a slight fill to the face. Fuji Neopan Acros 100 film, black scarf over camera lens to soften the image. Filled with light from a Dyna-Lite 1000wi studio pack and one head with a Larson 40-inch Soff Strip attached to the front. |
Curtains can be fun too, as in the (above) black & white image I shot with Fuji Neopan Acros 100 film. Here I mixed the window light with artificial light created by my Dyna-Lite 1000wi pack and one Dyna-Lite 2040 head attached to a Larson 48-inch Soff Strip. Nothing like a little “fill” from a studio light, but most people looking at that image would never know and think the window lit the model completely. Sometimes you can use white foam-core board, or just a white poster board to reflect light back from the window into your subject.
And if you are lucky, like I was when I shot the image of Kelly (above, left), you'll have more than one window at your disposal along the same wall, or two windows intersecting in one corner. The image of Kelly had a bank of windows making it a natural source of light as the sun began to set.
Have you looked at your windows lately? Don’t wait, study the light that comes through them, find out what is the best time to capture the beauty of that naturally filtered sun-light that transforms into subtle window light. Use it to your advantage, soothe your soul—after all, it’s free and no sync-cord required.
©2004 Rolando Gomez
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