When you need more light

“Not enough light” is usually two different problems: not enough total light, or too much contrast between the lit and shadowed parts. They have different answers.

Move before you add

The cheapest lighting change is position.

• Turn the subject towards a window rather than away from it.
• Move them nearer to it — light falls off very quickly with distance.
• Find a pale wall to stand them beside; it will bounce light back into the shadow side for free.

A window is a large, soft source. A person a metre from one is beautifully lit; the same person four metres away is not.

Fill the shadows

When contrast is the problem rather than quantity, you need fill light.

Anything pale and reflective works: a sheet of white card, a book, a light jacket, a wall. Held below and to the shadow side of a face, it lifts the darkness without becoming a second light.

The aim is to reduce contrast, not remove it. A face lit evenly from both sides looks flat.

Then flash

flash fires for a fraction of a millisecond, bright enough to matter even in daylight.

Two things to know:

Bounce it. Pointed directly at a subject it is a small, hard source and looks it. Angled at a ceiling or a wall, the whole surface becomes the source, and the light turns soft. This single change is most of the difference between snapshot lighting and something considered.

Its best use is outdoors. Not lighting dark rooms, but filling shadows in bright sun — the situation where faces go half dark and no amount of exposure adjustment fixes both ends.

What not to bother with first

A second flash, light stands, umbrellas and modifiers all make sense once you know what you are trying to do. Bought before that, they mostly sit in a cupboard.

Key takeaways

• Repositioning the subject relative to a window solves most indoor lighting problems.
• Light falls off very quickly with distance — closer to the window is much brighter.
• A piece of white card fills shadows as well as a bought reflector.
• Bounce flash rather than pointing it; its best use is filling shadows in daylight.