In photography light coming in  from the outside can be used as an alternative to artificial lighting when capturing an image. This is known as ‘window lighting’.

There is several ways in which you can photograph a person using window lighting.

• If the light is coming in from behind the subject you will get a silhouette of the subject. To counter balance this you must reflect some of the light from the window back onto your subject using a reflector or a white piece of card.
• You could have your subject at an angle to the window. This could create a chiarascuro effect. This means that half of your subject will in the light while the other half will in shadow.
• If your subject is facing the window the whole of their face will be illuminated. This means that there will be little to no shadows cast on your subject.

Contact Sheet:

RED: Not usable.

YELLOW: Maybe/Needs editing.

GREEN: Usable image.

Favourite Image:

To capture this photo I had the subject face slightly away from the source of light. This made one side of his face more illuminated than the other. The photo also has soft lighting as it was cloudy outside, which means that the shadows on the subject’s face are not very harsh and dark.