Lighting a Window

Window light is really something special. North windows are the best, but at midday, a western or eastern widow will do in a pinch. Essentially, windows are just one giant light source, and much much cheaper than a big soft box or strip light. North windows (in the northern hemisphere) get the most indirect sunlight, and thus have the softest light. Not quite as soft as a big soft box up close, but pretty dang good.

And when you combine strobes in with them, you can make some really awesome stuff happen.

Here's a little video of what I did for lighting today. Thought it'd be easier to show than to tell.

For editing this picture, I started by modifying the contrast a bit. Overall contrast went up a bit, then I shifted the mid tones to be a little brighter as well. Then darkened the blacks a bit. So why do this? As far as adjusting the blacks and whites, I wanted there to be pure white and black. Definitely pure white, otherwise I just feel like photos are flat and ugh. Sometimes it works to not have that, but for a lot there needs to be bright whites.

For the mid tones, I wanted a brighter image. The shadows got a little too dark for me, and I wanted brighter highlights. This was personal preference for me and this specific photo, it's not a hard a fast rule. I generally do my edits off of what my gut feeling are. If I look at a photo and think, I wish that was brighter, or if only that had a little more black there, then I go and do that! It's easy to see that you don't like something about a photo, and it takes only a little work to analyze it and figure out what that is. Then it's a simple matter of changing or fixing it.

See you tomorrow!