The Natural Light Portrait Book

How to Position Your Subject for a Window Light Portrait

For most window light portraits, we don’t have the subject facing directly toward the window (after all, if we did, we’d have to be standing outside to shoot them). Instead, we position them parallel to the window, so it is mostly side-lighting them. This usually creates a split-lighting look where half of their face is lit from the window and the other half is in shadows, which is great for movie posters, but not particularly awesome for everyday portraits. Ideally, we like to let some of the window light spill over to the other side of their face, and you can do that by simply having your ...