WINDOW LIGHT PORTRAITS — CHELSEA X VTOGRAPHY

Welcome back, Chelsea! Just a month after our first photo shoot together, we got together (on Valentine’s Day, no less) for a second shoot. While our first shoot was all about using strobe lights, I chose to use solely natural light for these window light portraits in our second photo shoot.

Window light portraits with model Chelsea

Window light portraits

When you’ve got a beautiful model and a camera, the only thing remaining to guarantee a good photo is the right light. In this case, it was the 10’ x 10’ panel of north-facing windows in my condo combined with a large 36” x 48” reflector (VIEW ON AMAZON).

Wearing a bodysuit from La Vie En Rose, I positioned Chelsea in the middle of the window bank and drew the curtain in close to her to diffuse some of the light. The silver side of the 5-in-1 reflector was pointed at Chelsea to provide a nice fill and prevent too much of her from being lost in shadow.

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If you’re not familiar with 5-in-1 reflectors, you might be wondering what five functions they have. They’re equipped with five “sides”:

  1. White — for soft, neutral reflections
  2. Black — to absorb light and make your subject darker
  3. Silver — for brighter, specular reflections
  4. Gold — as above, but with a warmer tone
  5. Translucent — typically placed between a light source and the subject to diffuse the light

In the photos below, I switched to the gold side of the reflector to provide more of a warm glow on Chelsea’s skin.

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While the Nikon 85mm ƒ/1.8 lens (VIEW ON AMAZON) is usually my lens of choice for portraits, I switched to a Nikon 50mm ƒ/1.4 lens (VIEW ON AMAZON) for the portraits below. With the window at my back, I had no room to back up any further and thus a lens with a wider angle than 85mm was needed. Because the light source was now at my back and such a large light source at that, I no longer needed the reflector for these final images. The windows provided soft, even light across the whole frame.

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