Turn the Overhead Off and Go to the Window
You just learned that when your photos come out wrong, it's usually the light and not the camera. Now for the practical half: what you actually do about it.
Most people take pictures wherever they happen to be standing. Your kid does something cute at the kitchen table, you grab the phone, you shoot it right there under the overhead light. Then you look later and everybody's got weird yellow shadows under their eyes and the whole thing looks a little sick. That's not your kid's fault, and it's not your phone's fault. That's the light bulb's fault, and once you know that, you can beat it.
Overhead lights, especially the regular bulbs or fluorescents most of us have in kitchens and living rooms, throw light straight down. It hits the top of a face or the top of an object and does nothing for the rest. And a lot of bulbs carry a color cast, that dull yellow or sickly green, that your eyes barely notice because your brain corrects for it automatically. Your phone doesn't correct for it nearly as well. So you get a photo that looks nothing like what you thought you saw.
I learned this one the hard way with a baby quilt. Spent a whole evening trying to photograph it under my kitchen fluorescents, dead set on finishing that night. Every shot came out sickly green, like the quilt had a fever. I fussed with it for an hour. Next morning I carried the whole thing into the front room, laid it near the window, and got a good shot in two tries. Two tries, after a full evening of nothing. I don't skip that step anymore, and you won't want to either.
What to actually do
- Turn off the overhead light. Not dim it, off. Even a little overhead light will fight with the window light and give you that same mixed, muddy look.
- Find a window with good light. It doesn't need to be direct sun blasting in. Actually, direct sun through a window can be harsh and give you hard shadows. Softer, indirect light, like a window that's bright but not catching direct sun, is usually your best bet. North-facing windows are reliably good for this if you know your house's orientation. If you don't, no worries, just notice which window is bright without being blinding.
- Turn your subject toward the window, not away from it. This one trips people up constantly, so you're in good company if you've done it. If the person or object has their back to the window, the window is behind them and you're photographing a silhouette. Face them toward the light.
- Get close enough that the window light is actually doing something. Six inches back from the wall doesn't count. Get your subject right up near that window.
- Take a few, from a couple different distances and angles. Light shifts fast, especially morning and evening. What worked two minutes ago might not work now, and that's fine, you just take a few more.
Morning and evening light tends to be softer and warmer than harsh midday light. If you've got the flexibility, that's when to shoot. Not always possible, I know, kids don't wait for good light. But when you do have the choice, early or late beats noon.
One thing I'll say plainly: light is the whole game. Ninety percent of what makes a photo look bad is bad light, not a bad camera, not the wrong phone, and definitely not you being bad at this. Fix the light first, every time, before you touch anything else.
A quick aside on chasing light
I'll admit I get a little intense about this. We were up the canyon on a family hike a while back, and I kept stopping to shoot the light coming through some scrub oak, this dappled gold stuff filtering down through the leaves. My son Easton, maybe fifteen at the time, finally told me I was being weird about the trees. I was. Absolutely. But I got one shot out of that afternoon that I still love, and none of the shots I'd have gotten by just walking past would've been worth keeping. Sometimes weird about the trees is exactly where a good photo comes from, so give yourself permission to stop and look.
A real caution
If you're shooting near a window with direct sun coming through, don't point your camera straight at the sun for long, especially if you're using zoom. It won't hurt your eyes the way looking at the sun directly does, but it can create a weird glare or even affect the camera sensor over time if you do it a lot. Mild thing, not an emergency, just don't make a habit of it.
Before next time
Find one window in your house that gives good light at some point in the day, morning or evening, and take a photo of something ordinary there with the overhead off. A cup of coffee, your kid doing homework, doesn't matter. Just notice the difference. You'll see it right away.