Capture beautiful images with natural light

The light is crucial for your photos! If the light is bad it's difficult to get good pictures no matter how awesome your DSLR is or how great you've styled the scene!

In this post we are going to share our very best photography tips on how to get beautiful pictures without studio equipment - only using natural light. It is easy to think that if we only had a better camera or lens, the photos would be better, but usually the limitations are not set in the equipment.

Capture beautiful images with natural light

1. Study the light around you

I love shooting with natural light and a lot of times I walk around in my house studying the light as it falls through the windows. I also study how the shadows fall on the objects close to the window. By studying the light around us we get a good understanding of how we can work with the natural light and take advantage of it.

Try to place an object close to one of your windows and study how the shadows fall differently depending on the time of day, the direction of the window or the weather outside. You will also notice that the time of year plays a role in how the light and shadows fall.

Place an object in front of the window and study how the shadows fall

2. Avoid direct sunlight

One might think that a sunny day with blue skies is the best weather for photography, but often times the pictures end up with too much contrast when we shoot in direct sunlight and we also might lose some details in the photo (that might be tricky to recover even in the the editing process). So a cloudy day is actually a perfect day for photography!

Preferably shoot on a cloudy day

3. Spread the light coming in through your window

In case you have direct sunlight pouring in through your windows when you're shooting there are ways to handle it. Professional photographers often use diffusers to soften the light, but if you don't have that try to tape some baking paper on the windows or hang a semi-transparent curtain in front of your window. The light will then spread out in a nice way and you will get beautiful photos.

4. Work with the shadows

I början när jag fotade så strävade jag efter att få in så mycket ljus som möjligt i bilden. Risken med för mycket ljus och för lite skuggor är dock att bilden känns platt. När jag väl började experimentera med skuggorna upptäckte jag att det blev mycket lättare att framhäva former och texturer när jag ökade mina skuggor. Mina bilder gick från att kännas tvådimensionella till mer tredimensionella. Så experimentera med skuggorna! Mycket handlar även om tycke och smak, vilken känsla man gillar i sin bilder. Det handlar även om vilket motiv du fotar. Fotar du porträtt så kanske du vill ha mindre skuggor än när du fotar semlor tex! 🙂

The shadows will help you to get beatiful textures and shapes