I have been shooting a load of interviews over the last couple of weeks for the BBC – a history of the Royal Wedding to be precise! By its very nature the subject has meant interviewing ladies and gentlemen of a certain age! And I have been shooting virtually all of them using available light. Windows are the main source of light – it is a lovely soft source and fills in beautifully all the ‘nooks and crannies’ on a 90 year old face! You can still model – angle your subject a little toward or away from the source of light and watch as the light on their face drops away. Nothing to stop you using a reflector as a fill, or frequently with me I use a ‘kicker’, which is any artificial light angled back at the side of the head from behind, the light glancing or ‘kicking’ on the cheek bone. Very effective with natural light. I use anything from a 150 watt fresnel, or if I am competing with a lot of light coming in, then I will use my 800 watt redhead, on a dimmer, so I can get the intenisty of light just how I want it.
Two things to add, when using available light don’t get caught out with loosing your key source of light when the sun goes down – watch your schedule! (You will probably also need to stop-pull as the day goes on or the sun goes behind a cloud etc). Secondly use a graduated filter on the front of your lens to take down the brighteness of the window. I use a soft edge 0.9 Grad and it does the trick perfectly, not least because you can adjust the filter to take the light off the bright areas, while not affecting your subject. Clever stuff…….
