How to Shoot Blog Photography in Natural Light

Looking for an inexpensive way to improve your blog photography? Find the light! Natural light photography is a great way to shoot beautiful photos for your blog. It takes some practice to know how to shoot in this light, as Mother Nature controls the color, location, and angle of the light. But with practice, you can shoot beautiful projects all in natural light. Keep reading for my favorite natural light set-up and shop some of my favorite tools for this type of photography.

How to Shoot in Natural Light:

1. Find the light. Time for a field trip. Walk around your house and look for the light. Some rooms are obviously really dark and don't get ANY light. Take those off your list. Some rooms get direct, harsh sunlight. Yep. Take those off your list too. Look for rooms where they are illuminated and the light brightens the space but doesn't overwhelm the space. This is often south facing windows with a slight overhang like a porch. Or it could be a north facing room with afternoon sun. Take a vase of flowers or something around your house and shoot it. You'll start to get a feel for where to shoot.

My favorite place to shoot in natural light? My garage! Why? When I open the garage door, light comes in but not all the way. And the sun bounces off the concrete back onto my photography subject giving it great light.

 
2. Stage the set up. Once you've found the best light in your home, it's time to set up the shot. First start by selecting a backdrop for your shoot. I talk all about my favorite backdrops HERE including super cheap options that make quick work of your photography. For ease of shooting, I like to shoot on a table or bench. I place a wooden piece on the table or bench surface and then a wooden piece behind my shot. Again you can use whatever set up you prefer. I used a chair here to help prop up my board.

3. At this point, you can add props. In this article HERE, I talk about staging my projects for photography. It is a helpful guide to choosing what to add or not add to your project photography and includes both straight on shots and flat lay shots. For this project's main photos, I'm simply using the three bags as the only prop in my photo. But for shooting the individual bags, I used a roll of tickets to prop up my project.

4. Set up a reflector. If you look at my set-up closely, you can see that in Step 2 the right side of my set-up is a little grey/dark. I need to fix this. This is where a light reflector comes in. I have set up one here that is silver on one side and white on the other. I used the silver side for this shot as I found it bounced more light than the white side. Test to see which side you prefer. I've shared a link to this reflector in the supplies listed below.

If you don't have a reflector, you can use a white poster board, some white foam core, or some foam core covered in tinfoil. No need to spend a lot. Basically you just need something to bounce light into the darker part of your photos. If you like deep shadows, then don't worry about this step. I, however, prefer a nice, even lighting set up for my photos.

5. Dial in your camera settings. Take a few test shots. Adjust your aperture, shutter speed, or ISO as needed to open up the camera to allow in more light if necessary. Don't overexpose. If you're not yet comfortable in manual mode, this set up does give nice photos in automatic mode. You may have to adjust the lighting in post-production, however.

Here's a look at how this project looks in natural light shot in automatic mode:

And here's how it looks once I up the contrast, and remove some of the blue from the photo in Photoshop. I also cropped into the photo to get more of the final project in the center of the image.

Shooting in full manual mode will allow you open up the light and adjust any blue shadows (light in some areas of the world and at different times of day, can pull bluish).

If you find that natural light photography is taking up too much of your time and energy, then I highly suggest a lighting kit. These range in prices, but my favorite set HERE is often on sale for just $50. I shoot almost all my photos with this kit now, so that I can shoot in the early morning and late at night.

If you have any questions, please post them below. Or if you have a question about setting up your blog photography, please let me know. I'd love to help!

Shop the Supplies:

(Click the links for product information. Affiliate links have been used where possible. A small percentage of each sale is paid to me at no additional cost to you.)