Reading the Light: How to Read the Room
Imagine this: you walk into a home for the first time, camera bag slung over your shoulder, eyes scanning the space like a hawk. But instead of a prey to pounce on, you’re sizing up your nemesis—lighting. Yes, that fickle, unpredictable force that can either make a room glow like a million-dollar mansion or turn it into a dungeon.
In real estate photography, being able to “read the light” on your first walk-through of a property is like having a superpower. It allows you to assess the space, choose the right angles, and work your lighting magic to capture each room’s true potential. But don’t worry if you’re not feeling like a lighting wizard just yet. In this post, I’ll walk you through how to overcome common lighting challenges on the fly, all while keeping it fun (and maybe even quirky).
Photography by Dionel Lake // Build and Design Dru Chapman and Kenowa Builders
Step 1: Meet the Space and Its Lighting Personality
When you first walk into a home, think of it like meeting someone new. The house has its own personality, and the lighting is its mood—sometimes bright and sunny, sometimes moody and mysterious, and occasionally... well, let’s just say it hasn’t had its coffee yet.
As you walk through the property, do a quick lighting audit:
Are there big windows? Is natural light pouring in, or is it hiding behind heavy curtains?
How’s the overhead lighting? Are you dealing with industrial spotlights, warm sconces, or those dreadful fluorescent bulbs?
What time of day is it? This might sound obvious, but 9 a.m. sunlight vs. 3 p.m. sunlight makes a big difference.
Each room will tell you a different lighting story, and it’s your job to decide how you want to capture it. For instance, a kitchen bathed in natural sunlight at noon might not need much tweaking, but that tiny, dimly lit bathroom at the back? It’s screaming for a lighting intervention.
Pro Tip: Always bring a flashlight or small portable light source on your walk-through. It helps you spot those dark corners that may need extra attention later.
Step 2: Know When to Embrace Natural Light (and When to Give It a Little Nudge)
Natural light is like a double-edged sword. It’s free, it’s beautiful, and when it’s behaving, it can make a room feel inviting and alive. But when it’s too harsh or too dim, it can create deep shadows or turn a room into a blown-out mess of highlights.
When you spot beautiful natural light streaming through windows, let it shine! Position your shots to take full advantage of this light source, but keep an eye out for these common problems:
Photographed by Dionel Lake // Design and Build Kenowa Builders
Too much sunlight: Is it blasting through the windows and turning everything into a shiny, overexposed mess? Time to soften things up.
Solution: Throw a diffuser over the window, or (if you’re like me and forgot to pack one) get creative with sheer curtains or even a bed sheet to tame that sunlight. Or, use it as an artistic element to highlight the bright spots of a room.
Solution: You can also let those sun beams thrive! Simply pump up the power on your external flash. Don’t be scared to go full power, and bring it back from there; while widening your aperture. My go-to is generally 5.6 or higher.
Too little sunlight: If you’ve walked into a north-facing room at 4 p.m. in winter, well, good luck with that. You’ll need to supplement.
Solution: Set up external lighting to mimic sunlight. Aim for bounce lighting that softly fills the room without creating hard shadows. Position your light to make it look like the sun is still shining brightly outside.
Pro Tip: Try setting your external lights as if they’re actually part of the room’s lighting scheme. Place them near windows, so they mimic sunlight streaming in, or bounce light off white walls to create an evenly lit space.
Step 3: Taming Tight Spaces and Reflections
Ah, the dreaded small bathroom—the bane of every real estate photographer’s existence. You walk in, camera in hand, only to realize you’re practically on top of the toilet and that every surface is gleaming back at you like a mirror. Don’t panic. You’ve got this.
First, make yourself small. No, this doesn’t always mean for you to squeeze into the bathtub, but you do need to use a wide-angle lens (I recommend sticking around 24mm to minimize distortion). This will help you capture the entire room without having to break any walls (though that could be fun if you didn’t have an appointment to keep).
Now, about those reflections. Mirrors, tiles, glass shower doors—all love to bounce light back at you, not to mention catch a sneaky selfie of you hunched over the toilet with your camera. The trick is to strategically place your lights so that they don’t reflect directly back into your shot.
Position your lights high and off to the side, using bounce lighting to flood the room without creating distracting hot spots.
For particularly tricky reflections, a polarizing filter can help minimize glare on reflective surfaces. Think of it as putting sunglasses on your camera—pretty cool, right?
Pro Tip: Bathrooms often look better with a slight shadow play to highlight textures. Don’t aim for perfectly flat lighting. Instead, let some of the shadows from natural light linger—it makes the space feel more dimensional and less clinical.
Step 4: Battling Mixed Lighting with Color Consistency
Photography by Dionel Lake // Build and Design Dru Chapman and Kenowa Builders
Mixed lighting is like the color clash of the photography world. You’ve got warm tungsten light mixing with cool daylight, and suddenly, everything looks like it’s in the middle of a color war. The challenge here is keeping your whites white, and your colors true to life.
Here’s how to handle it:
Identify the dominant light source: Is it natural sunlight, or are the overhead tungsten lights winning the battle? Once you’ve identified it, balance the competing light by either:
Adding external lighting that matches the dominant color temperature, or
Switching bulbs (yes, this might involve unscrewing a few light bulbs) to create a uniform lighting temperature.
White Balance is Your Friend: Always shoot in RAW, and adjust your white balance settings on-site to match the dominant light source. You can tweak it further in post-processing, but getting it close during the shoot saves time later.
A color card to help with gray-scale is a great solution for on-site!
Pro Tip: Carry a set of color-temperature-matching gels for your lights. They’re easy to pop on and help match your external lighting to the room’s existing lighting, minimizing the chances of your photos looking like a disco.
Step 5: Make It Up As You Go—The Joy of On-the-Fly Adjustments
Real estate photography rarely goes exactly as planned, especially when you’re walking into a home for the first time. You can’t control the weather, the light fixtures, or whether the homeowner decided to leave their neon blue fish tank light on.
The key is to stay flexible, and dare I say, have a little fun with it! The best photographers are the ones who can think on their feet and adapt to any lighting challenge thrown at them.
Stay Calm and Experiment: Try shooting from different angles, play with your lighting setups, and take multiple exposures. Sometimes, the lighting quirk that seems like a headache in the moment becomes the most unique and beautiful part of the final image.
Trust Your Gut: If a certain lighting setup doesn’t feel right, don’t be afraid to change it, even if it means adjusting mid-shoot. Your intuition is one of your greatest tools as a photographer.
Pro Tip: Remember that you can always fix some issues in post-processing, but it’s best to get as close as possible to your vision in-camera. This saves time and ensures your photos remain as natural as possible.
Step 6: Walk Away Knowing You’ve Conquered the Space
By the time you’ve finished shooting, you’ll have battled harsh sunlight, dark corners, reflective surfaces, and color wars—and you’ll have won. Whether you’ve captured that tiny bathroom in all its wide-angle glory or tamed the midday sun, you can walk away knowing you’ve truly made the space shine.
Photography, like any art, is all about problem-solving. With a little creativity, technical know-how, and maybe a few makeshift lighting tricks, you’ll be able to overcome any lighting challenge you face and walk out of that house with photos that dazzle.
Now go forth, fellow photographer, and conquer the next space!