How to Embrace Winter Light in Photography

Hap­py Decem­ber! The hol­i­day spir­it is in the air. The low, warm win­ter light is here. Hope­ful­ly, your fam­i­ly will all be home togeth­er, and you will be tak­ing a ton of pho­tos to remem­ber this hol­i­day season. 

Decem­ber brings the smell of fires burn­ing in the fire­place, chest­nuts roast­ing on an open fire (I have nev­er roast­ed a chest­nut, have you?), and the twin­kle of the Christ­mas tree. It also brings a lot less light for you to take amaz­ing pic­tures, espe­cial­ly if you take them inside! If you’re learn­ing to use your cam­era, head over and check out the Begin­ners Pho­tog­ra­phy Essen­tials!

Don’t wor­ry, tak­ing amaz­ing pic­tures inside is all about work­ing with the light. I teach my stu­dents that learn­ing to find light and learn­ing to make that light work for you is essen­tial in your pho­to­graph­ic jour­ney. That can be dif­fi­cult with win­ter light, but you can do it. 

Low Winter Light Photography Indoors

Spend a few days notic­ing the light in your house. Is there a par­tic­u­lar time of day that the sun­light streams through your kitchen win­dow? Jot that time and loca­tion down. What about in the after­noon? Is the light bet­ter in one part of the house over the oth­er? It’s incred­i­ble the light you can find when you pay attention. 

Once you find that light, fol­low these five sim­ple steps to amaz­ing pho­tos using nat­ur­al light indoors, and you will nev­er again have to wor­ry that you can’t take pic­tures on drea­ry, over­cast days!

Five Simple Steps to Amazing Photos Using Natural Winter Light Indoors

1. Turn Off Artificial Light Sources

Many of you already know you want to turn off the lights when pho­tograph­ing inside. If you have com­pet­ing light sources, this will affect your white bal­ance. Use the light from the win­dow to light up your subject. 

2. Face Your Subject Towards the Light

Face your sub­ject towards the light. After that, have your sub­ject angle off of the light source and use that nat­ur­al light to cre­ate flat­ter­ing shad­ows and catch­lights in their eyes. Catch­lights are those lit­tle squares of light that you catch in your subject’s eyes, giv­ing them life.

3. Explore ALL Rooms in the House

Move your sub­ject around the house, and don’t for­get the bath­rooms. Yes, the bath­rooms. Bath­rooms with win­dows can have great nat­ur­al win­ter light.

4. Use a High ISO Setting

Crank up the ISO if need­ed. You read that cor­rect­ly. Most cam­eras nowa­days can han­dle a high ISO. And it’s okay to have a bit of grain in your pho­to. If your image is exposed cor­rect­ly and your ISO is high, you will have a pic­ture with much less noise. 

5. Don’t Forget to Have Fun & Be Creative

Last­ly, have fun cre­at­ing amaz­ing pho­tos using indoor light. Try clos­ing the cur­tains to dif­fuse the light. For instance, closed blinds cre­ate dap­pled light. Exper­i­ment with how close and how far your sub­ject is to the win­dow. You can even hang a blan­ket over the win­dow and see what kind of shad­ows you can achieve. Blan­kets have dif­fer­ent weights, tex­tures, and col­ors — all will have an effect on the light. Test them out to see which effect you like most!

There are so many ways to achieve amaz­ing pho­tos using indoor light. Now, grab your cam­era, try out a few of these tips, and don’t for­get to pop onto my Face­book page and share a few!

Cheers!

Dena

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Learn how to use man­u­al mode and take con­trol of your cam­era so that you can cre­ate the amaz­ing images that you’ve always imag­ined with the online Begin­ners Pho­tog­ra­phy Essentials!