Bride in Beautiful Window Light with Rembrandt Lighting

Bridal Window Portrait

Lets face it, nothing beats natural light when it is done right.  I am the first wedding photographer to tell you that using studio lighting or even off-camera flash can often be the best way to light a bride.  However, if you have the right situation and hopefully a north facing window, you can get dramatic wedding pictures of the bride.  The above photo was taken during our normal bridal prep that we often do before the ceremony on the wedding day.  We arrived at the home of the bride early to get some nice "getting ready" images and then pictures of the dress being zipped up.  Then we took a series of pictures of the bride in various poses including this window shot.  As you can see, the lighting is almost perfect.  Soft light coming in from the one direction, but with non-harsh shadows on the other side.  What you cannot see in this photo is the fact that I actually DID have a flash working to create this photo.  The only issue with the light was that the left side of the bride's face was a bit too dark in the original photo.  I liked the contrast this created, but didn't want to over do it so I aimed my on camera flash against a wall to my left.  The light bounced off the wall and gave just enough fill light to make this into a nicely lighted bridal image.