Nothing looks more natural, than natural light, right? Well, sorta. I often have the idea a beautiful young bride would look great with no more light than whatever’s available from the window. You know, natural like.

In fact, something like this one here. In truth, it rarely works that way. The reason “The Watchful Bride” actually worked, was down to the fact the window had a net curtain up, causing the light to diffuse and appear softer. Plus, I wanted the shadow falloff to be fairly short, allowing me to gently fade her towards the darker room.

And what if there isn’t a big, useful, diffusing net curtain? Well, that is a problem I tend to come up against far more often than not. This very attractive young lady is stood in front of a large patio door, and whilst it isn’t full on sunshine outside, it was rather bright. Bright enough to cause quite a shadow along the side of her nose and into her left eye and cheek. Did I resort to fill in flash? No, not on this occasion.

The curtain hanging against the patio door had a cream coloured lining, and I utilised that as an impromptu reflector to fill the left side of her face.

Not exactly exciting, I know. But the result is an image with the soft ambience of natural light that I particularly like.

Post processing was a simple action from Stu’s Creative Color Lab (#22 – Warm Sepia which I love). That’s it.

Nikon D3 at  1/320th sec, ISO800 24-70 at f4

My wedding work can be found at : www.weddingphotographerinlancashire.com