Natural Light. On Steroids.

I was watching a video located here the other night; and for those not wanting to check it out, it's about an excellent headshot photographer who goes into what he does and why he does it. Long story short, I picked up a few tips on how to light using natural light from a large window behind the photographer. I was very surprised at the results.

The color version:


And here is the B&W I made from this:

50mm, ƒ/2.0, 1/160sec and ISO 400 (1/3 stop underexposed by accident, but pulled back in PP).

Another one, just for fun:


This was a no-effort exercise. The big window behind me produced the main light, a window 45° camera right added bright side light, and a window 45° camera left added fill. Zero PP done, apart from the B&W conversion, and I didn't even use a Raw file for this. The in-camera JPEG was plenty "high-quality".

As a foot note, I do have to say I shot Raw+JPEG, because I'm a chicken and wouldn't dare using JPEG only. I still don't feel I nail exposure perfectly on a consistent basis, or at least not enough to stick with JPEG only.