Using natural light is one of the greatest and easiest ways to get great video lighting. There’s a depth, a nuance, and a time-of-day life to natural light that we don’t often find in artificial lighting. By utilizing windows, doors, skylights, and bouncing natural light off of other objects in the environment, you can create an enormous array of lighting options in a small room with virtually no equipment. Learning when the sun moves, when the light gets soft or harsh, and how to use cloud cover to your advantage will help you plan your shoots accordingly. Instead of fighting the light, try working with it.
If you can successfully light through a window, then it is essentially the largest soft light available. It creates a nice, smooth wrap that would likely require less fill light. If you set up your subject at the side of a window, it will give you an interesting shadow and some of the beautiful Rembrandt lighting. Here’s what I mean by beautiful. Frontal lighting from a window might be unflattering. Soft sidelight is much nicer. The light from a window can still be overpowering so it’s not a bad idea to use a reflector. I’ve used diffusion to control light in this way. Shooting near a window gives you a bit of leeway. If you notice in the above photo, the light coming in is not perfect at this time of day. But, it will be better later. Knowing the way light changes throughout the day makes it easier to light your subject.
In addition to the light coming from the window itself, you can also use the light bouncing off the walls, floor, ceiling, and surrounding objects as secondary light sources. A white or bright colored room will naturally fill-in shadows with a soft, indirect light that is easy on the eyes, while a dark colored room will maintain stronger shadows and higher contrast, which might be desirable for more dramatic scenes. Even practical objects in the scene such as mirrors, a white sheet of fabric used as a bounce board, or even the windshield of a car, can be used to create the desired amount of rim light or subtle highlights in a scene.
Similarly, it’s crucial to understand how to block unwanted rays. Placing black flags, fill cards or draping pieces of clothing over furniture can prevent unwanted fill light or hot spots. When working outside, finding ways to cut the harsh midday sun by placing yourself in the shade of a building, or capturing the soft, overcast light of a cloudy day, are all ways to maintain the versatility of natural light while controlling it enough to achieve a professional result.
Natural lighting, then, is as much about cooperation with nature as it is about domination of it. It’s about observing, waiting, and using as little equipment as necessary to create the greatest emotional effect. And the abilities you cultivate through it — knowing how to work with light direction, how to anticipate a shift in light quality, and how to control the light you already have — are the building blocks that will improve every future project, no matter how much money you have or how complicated your rig is. A lot of the greatest documentary and fictional films and commercials in history have been shot using nothing more than natural lighting, so don’t be afraid to keep things simple and subtle.
