Finding and reading a window
Okay. This is the lesson where we stop talking about cameras for a minute and talk about light, because light is the actual thing you're photographing. The camera just records it. And of everything I teach in this whole class, this is the one I'd want you to remember if you forgot the rest.
Natural light beats a bag of gear for beginners. Full stop, that's my opinion and I'll die on it right next to the one about lenses. Most people buy equipment to avoid learning the thing the equipment is supposed to teach them, and window light is free, it's already in your house, and it will teach you more about how light behaves on a face than a flash will, because a flash lies to you a little. A window doesn't. It just does what it does and you either read it right or you don't.
So let's read it.
Walk your house first
Before you touch the camera, walk around your house at the time of day you'd actually shoot. Look at every window. Not for photos yet, just look at what the light is doing on the wall, on the floor, on your own arm if you hold it up.
You're looking for two things: how big the light source is, and how direct it is.
A window with direct sun blasting through it is a small, harsh light source, even though the window itself might be huge. It'll throw hard shadows, it'll make people squint, and it's murder on skin because it exaggerates every texture. A window with no direct sun, just bright open sky, is a soft light source. Soft light is forgiving. It wraps around a face instead of carving it up. For portraits, especially when you're starting out, you want the second one almost every time.
North-facing windows in the northern hemisphere are the classic "always soft" answer, and that's true enough, but honestly the simpler rule is: is the sun actually coming through this window right now, or is it just bright outside and the window's catching sky light. Overcast days are basically a giant softbox God installed for free. I love a cloudy day for portraits. Your mileage may vary but I will take flat gray sky over harsh noon sun every single time.
Where to put the person
Once you've found a soft window, don't put your subject right up against the glass unless the light's already gentle. Back them up a few feet into the room. Light falls off as it moves away from the source, which sounds like a problem but it actually gives you more control, because now small changes in position make visible changes in the light on their face.
Turn them slowly. Watch the shadow that forms on the side of the nose and under the cheekbone. That's your read. A little shadow there gives a face shape and dimension. No shadow at all and the face goes flat, kind of pancake-looking. Too much shadow and you lose detail in half the face. You're hunting for the middle, and you find it by turning your subject in small steps and just watching, not shooting yet.
The bedsheet thing
I've told this story in another context but it applies directly here: I shot a neighbor's whole family in my own front room once, no studio, no fancy backdrop, just a bedsheet clipped to a shelf and whatever the window was doing that afternoon. They loved those photos. That's the lesson underneath this whole module. A simple backdrop you understand beats a fancy one you don't, and the same goes double for light. You don't need a light kit. You need one window and the patience to turn a person around in front of it a few times.
Watch your edges here too
Same rule as always, check your edges before you check the face. Window light setups are notorious for a specific problem: the far side of the room fades into shadow and swallows half your background, or there's a lamp, a cord, a pile of laundry sitting right in frame because you were so focused on the light on their cheek you stopped looking at everything around it. Do a full lap of the frame before you shoot. Corners, edges, floor.
One real caution, not a big one but worth saying: if you've got someone backed up near a window ledge or a heater vent under the window, watch where their feet are. People shuffle backward while you're fussing with light and don't look down. Nobody's ever gotten badly hurt in my front room but I've caught a foot on a cord more than once.
When it falls apart, that's fine too
I tried once to get eleven people, three of them under six, organized for a group shot at a family thing, all facing one soft-lit doorway, everybody looking at the camera at once. It did not happen. Total chaos, kids wandering off, someone's dog involved somehow. But right in the middle of that mess I got one frame of everybody actually looking at the chaos, not at me, and it's still the favorite photo from that whole day. So control what you can control, which is where you put people and where the light's coming from, and let the rest happen. At the end of the day you can't manage a room full of six-year-olds, so.
Before next time
Walk your own house at a couple different times of day and just notice which windows go soft and which go harsh, no camera required. That's the whole assignment. Next time we'll bring the camera back into it.