This week’s photo tip is a follow-up to last week’s post about low light photography.  It has to do with another area of low-light photography, indoor photography.

 Indoor photography presents some unique challenges to outfit photography in that there is little natural light present, and when using artificial light to light your subject, the color temperatures of these light sources can be much different from that of sunlight.

 What I like to do when taking photos indoors is to have my subject stand near a window.  Windows during the daytime provide a nice source of soft, diffuse light which will illuminate your subject, while not casting any harsh shadows. It usually works best to have the subject face the window.

 The above photos were all taken in widow light.  Don’t mind Tripp, I had to throw some pictures of him in there because Grace and I don’t take too many indoor outfit photos…plus he’s adorable.

 If window light isn’t an option, then find a source of artificial light that’s on the same level {height-wise} as your subject and have them face it.  You want to avoid overhead lights as they’ll cast harsh shadows on your subject just like midday sun would.  You’ll have to adjust your white balance on your camera to compensate for the color temperature of the light source that you’re using.  Luckily though, most D-SLRs have white balance presets for certain light sources such as fluorescent and tungsten bulbs.  Simply select the preset for the type of bulb that’s providing the light on your subject. Here’s a link to a previous post on white balance for more information on the subject of color temperature.

 Most likely, you’ll have to bump up your ISO as well to compensate for the reduced amount of light that shooting indoor provides.  Raise it just high enough to allow you to use the minimal 1/125th of a second shutter speed for hand-held shooting and you should be good to go.

Thanks for reading!

 Andrew