LIGHT! It’s more important than buying a new expensive camera or lens for a photographer, like ourselves. You can take a really bad picture with a very expensive camera, but you can take a really great image with a cheap camera as long as you have great light. Daylight is the best light you can use without buying into flash equipment, which in essence aim to replicate day light.
When we built our garden studio, we knew that the windows would let loads of light pour in, allowing us to make the most of as much daylight as possible, but when it’s real dark and gloomy outside, the far corners of the room can still be a little dark and uneven. We’ve installed daylight LED panels but they can feel a little too artificial some times, so we’ve been exploring other ways to add extra, natural feeling or even natural day light to the studio space.
We also use the studio as a little office away from our home office for when we need some quiet time, and also for filming as part of the blog. Our first thought was to use a few strips of LED lights in the beams of the studio roof to bounce light up at the white ceiling and fill in the dark corners. We then found some awesome VELUX roof skylights which are also windows. Chantele’s aunt had these in her converted mill house and from a geeky perspective I loved them. I love product design, and products that do more than one job, but do it well. With a small amount of wood framing in the roof of the studio, we could add two beautiful VELUX windows which would let light pour in when we wanted it, but then use the installed blinds, like these ones, to reduce the amount of light or black it out completely depending on which option we went for.
We’ve not had the studio long so we don’t know how stuffy its going to be in there when it gets warm or how well the air circulates, so the option to open the windows and create a flowing breeze for the hotter months also really appeals to me.
*This is a collaborative post