Creating the “Natural Light” Look in your Photography Studio

I love my all-white bedroom in my photography studio. The problem is that it’s in my basement, and the only window in the bedroom is below-ground. It only gets usable light for 9 months out of the year, and if it’s cloudy or rainy, it was pretty useless.

Instead of abandoning the studio bedroom for the winter or in bad weather, I came up with a solution to create the “natural light” look of window light by using the interior doorways of the bedroom.

Check out this video where I show you how it’s done… or scroll down for the description.

How to create “natural” light:

1. My studio has two doorways – both on the same wall. One doorway is french doors (two doors that open in the middle), and the other is a closet door. I removed all three doors. It actually only took a few minutes to remove them. Easy peasy.
2. Next, we (by we, I mean my husband), installed double-hung curtain rods over both doorways, and I hung two layers of white sheer curtains on them.
3. On the opposite side of the french doors, I’ve set up a studio strobe monolight with an umbrella. I pull open a white V-flat on the other side to trap the light and force it to bounce around in that space before going through the curtains over the french doorway.
4. Inside the storage closet, another strobe light (bare-bulb), is pointed up into the corner. When that one flashes, the light bounces around in that space before passing through the curtains of the closet.

The light from the french doors is closer to my subjects and is the main light. The light bouncing through the storage closet is farther away and creates fill light. Combined together, these give a beautiful, soft natural light look.

Want to compare these photos with “fake” window light with the actual natural light I get in the summer on sunny days? Check out the many examples in my newborn photography portfolio. When the light is coming from the left side of the bed, it’s using the natural light from the small below-ground window.

You can create your own natural light look in your photography studio, too! Check out your space to see where you have the option of creating a “fake window,” too! Never fret a rainy day again!