Window Light

A window is a large source on one wall, so the light arrives soft, from one side, and it runs out fast across the room. Everybody recognises it without being told what it is.

It also puts a clock in the frame. The angle and the colour coming through a window say what time of day it is, which is information the dialogue then does not have to carry.

The window is large and close, so the light is soft. It is also a single opening in a wall, so the falloff across a face is quick: a subject a metre from the glass is around two stops brighter than one at two metres.

Direction is the other half. The lit side of a face is the window side, the far cheek drops away, and the floor near the window is the brightest thing in the room.

Overcast light through a window is soft and neutral. Direct sun through the same window is hard and throws the frame of the window onto the floor, which is a different look entirely.

Use it for domestic interiors, for morning and afternoon scenes, and for any conversation that should feel unstaged.

Skip it when you need the whole room even. One window lights one part of a space and leaves the rest to fend for itself.

Bounce light is a method, throwing a source at a wall or a card and using the reflection. Window light is a named source with a direction and a falloff that belong to it.

The difference shows in the falloff. A bounced ceiling fills a room fairly evenly. A window loses two stops in a metre, and that gradient is the signature.

The light comes back even across the frame, which reads as a studio softbox rather than a window. Say the falloff is quick across the face and that the far side of the room stays dark.

The second failure is light with no direction. Name the side the window is on and say the light is directional as well as soft.