Quick Indoor Lighting Fix for Dark Photos

Lighting  •  Photography Tips

If you’re just starting out as a photographer, you may not have a firm concept of lighting yet. That’s okay—practice makes perfect photos, after all. When taking shots indoors, you’ll want to shoot near a window during daytime if you want that pleasantly soft natural light. In this video, Maggie Hudson shows us a simple fix for dark indoor shots:

It’s very easy. Instead of having your subject face away from the light of a window, have them facing the window itself—that way, the light will shine onto the person’s face, instead of casting awkward rim lighting.

Here are some quick photos showing the right and wrong ways to handle this:

The wrong way, with the subject’s back to the light.

The right way, with the subject’s face lit up.

Finally, Hudson recommends trying out a few different positions to see what works for your subject: have them sit and stand, and turn their faces so the light hits them in different ways.

“The very first one is clearly the worst way to take a portrait in that room.”