Behind The Scenes Lighting: Manipulating Natural Light in an Italian AirBnB

Would you believe this shot was taken in a bathroom between a toilet and a bidet in an Italian Airbnb? Let’s go behind the scenes to see exactly how I lit this shot by manipulating natural light in food photography.

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If you’ve ever rented an Airbnb and you’re a food photographer, you’ll know there are usually no props to shoot with. For me to make a beautiful photo, I knew that strong light had to play the most important role.

Especially using natural light, manipulating natural light can make all the difference. 

Manipulating Natural Light: Powerful is Key

I scoured the entire Airbnb to find the best light which was actually in the bathroom. 

As you’ll see in the behind-the-scenes shot, we have rather a bold green tile, which is not my go-to for natural light food photography, but the light was just so gorgeous that I’ve just had to play with the light in this room. Manipulating natural light in these conditions was quite a challenge.

Now in the bathroom, there was a small window that had a little bit of frosting and it was quite high. In the shot, you can see that we have hard light because we have a small light source. The window was quite small and as you can see from the direction of the shadow, it’s quite high. 

This has created some really deep shadows. If you take a look at the edge, you see we have a defined shadow which tells us that we have that hard light. By looking at the shadow, we can tell it’s hard light because the shadow has a defined edge. 

The shadows aren’t as hard as having direct sun hit the scene, but that little bit of frosting has helped us take the edge off. So the deep shadows, I think, creates something interesting in a very minimal scene. 

White Bouncing Light Around the Frame

Now, see that we have a lot of white features in the bathroom. There was a sink, there was a bidet, and there was a toilet. A little bit of light is bouncing around off these key pieces and helping us fill some of the frame. 

We have a sense of hard deep shadows but we also have a lot of areas that feel soft as well. The placement of the food itself, you can see at the top right-hand corner of the frame that we have the toilet blocking some of that light. So we have this shadow that’s coming through the frame. This is another example of how manipulating natural light can change the mood of the photo. 

Now it’s the combination of this lighting that is enhancing what’s important in that photo and what do you think that is? It is the texture that we have in the zucchini flowers. In natural light food photography, texture is often highlighted by the way light and shadow interplay. 

Reveal Texture in Food

This lighting is bringing out that beautiful texture that we’re seeing in the zucchini flowers. 

Now, after seeing this beautiful texture and being invigorated by shooting on the bathroom floor, I decided to keep hunting for light. 

Manipulating Natural Light 

The Airbnb had these beautiful tall windows with blockout shutters and I could see myself playing around with to block light. Now I did find a wok that I was able to put the zucchini flowers in to create a Chiaroscuro image.

For this shot to work, I needed to make sure that the light was higher than the actual subject. 

The wok here is just sitting in the little window area and I have the shutters closed so that we just are creating this really tall strip light. That is going to help us light the top of the subject. And allow those deep shadows to enter the bowl to create that effect. Manipulating natural light through these shutters gave me the soft shadows I needed. 

Using a Wok to Create Lighting Contrast

Now the reason the wok works is, one, because it was black, two, it was large and deep enough that we could hold the subject, and three, there is a lot of light that’s getting lost in the bottom. So it’s exaggerating that feeling. 

The quality and type of light in this shot are different. So we have soft light here. In the other image set-up, we had a small window and light source. In this one, we have that very tall strip of light. 

Now, even though it looks thin, it’s much larger than what we had before and our subject is much closer to it, which is making the apparent size larger. So it’s creating soft shadows that show the texture a little bit differently in this photo. 

Now I do remember that this was an east-facing window and I was shooting in the afternoon. So the light is also going to be indirect, which gives it that really beautiful soft quality. 

Power of Light

As you can see behind the scenes, I was close to the windows. 

That means the power of the light if we look at the image, inverse square law is going to be much more powerful than if I was across the room. If you take a look at the behind-the-scenes in the rest of the room, you can see it’s quite dark. 

We’re using those block-out blinds there and the most powerful spot for us to take that photo is close to the light. 

If you have beautiful light and beautiful produce, you can take a beautiful food photo. Natural light food photography just requires some exploration of your lighting options. And don’t be afraid to shoot in the bathroom! Manipulating natural light can lead to surprisingly stunning results.

To learn more about natural light, check out this video.

So tell me, where’s the craziest place you’ve taken a photo? Let me know in the comments below. 

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