How To Take Portraits with Natural Window Light

By: Aidan Smarth

Material List: Camera, subject to take photos, 50mm lens, and window

1. Turn on the camera and turn it to manual mode

2. Find an area with the proper lighting. This was taken on an overcast day with snow on the ground. Since there was snow on the ground it creates soft light instead of hard light on a sunny day. There was not too much light that day which made this photo easier to take

3. Next is camera settings. For this photo my settings on the camera were: ISO 200, F/ 1.8, and 1/15 sec. When setting exposure on a camera, I take into account, where I am, and also how much light is around me. In these photos, I picked a lower exposure to create a focus on the subject and simpler background.

4. Make sure the subject is positioned correctly. In the photo of Tom, his eyes are facing towards the window which creates the bright light in his eyes. He located only a couple of feet away from the window.

5. Try to tell a story with emotion on the face. I had Tom face the light so that he would be the subject of attention. I did this to try and not create distractions in the background

6. While editing these photos using Lightroom the first thing I did was turn the Black and White setting on. Next, I adjusted the exposure, contrast, whites, and blacks. 

7. Cropping photos

The one problem I ran into was finding a good location for the photo.