Different Kinds of Lighting Examples

Not all light is created equal. Just because the sun is shining does not mean you are working with good light, especially indoors. Window light is a really great source of indoor light and a great way to experiment. Try this: Take a walk around your home. Look at all of your windows. Do you have sliding glass doors, a bay window, skylights? Notice how the light is coming through those windows. Is it bright? Is it coming straight in or is it being blocked by trees or bushes? Experts will tell you the best light will come from a north facing window. The truth is, any window will do as long as the there is no direct sunlight coming in.

Now that you’ve found some light to work with, let’s talk about the different ways you can light your subject.

If you position your subject next to the window, that is Side Lighting. If you position your subject in front of the window, it’s called Front Lighting. If you position your subject with their back to the window it’s called Back Lighting. Sounds simple enough, right? Play around with these to find out what you like best. Side lighting will create shadows and add depth like the top example below. Notice how moving her just a little so that she is 45 degrees from the window light fills in the shadows, but it still has some dimension.

Here are some more examples of different kinds of lighting. These were all taken outdoors, but you can achieve the same results inside (even backlighting!). This first one is an example of front lighting. I positioned her under a gazebo with her face towards the opening so that she is evenly lit. Some people will tell you front lighting is flat because there are no shadows, but it also produces beautiful catchlights.  Remember what those are? A glisteny reflection in your subject’s eyes. You’ve literally caught the light in your subject’s eyes.

Backlighting is one of my favorites ways to light a subject, but it can be tricky. You are shooting with the sun behind your subject and there can be a lot of light flooding your camera. When that happens, your camera can have a hard time focusing. Backlighting can produce very different images in a span of just a few minutes too. The higher the sun, the more haze. The lower the sun, the more flare you can get. Once it gets really low, you get this beautiful warm glow. I schedule most of my sessions about two hours before sunset because you can capture all of these in just one session. In this first example, the sun is still kind of high so there is a bit of haze. You can see a little flare at the bottom of the ladder too. Looks like a rainbow.

You can see the sun behind Dad’s head in this family shot. Backlighting works well if you have trees or something that you can block some of the sun.

Another example of backlighting. Again, I used the trees to filter the sun.

One more example. This shot is more hazy because there is more sun entering the camera. You can see the haze by mom’s head. And look down by the little girl’s hands. You can see some some flare there. I love the emotion and happiness in this image and I think the glow of the sun adds to the warmth. 

We’ll talk more about working with sun flare next week. If you would like this and other photography tips sent directly to your inbox every Friday, click here!