Natural Light Photography: The Photo Industries Biggest Lie

On the surface, a person who describes their style as a “natural light photographer” has most likely given some thought to how they want to brand themselves, but may be disguising a fear or total lack of technical ability to work with artificial lighting.

I have gone through countless portfolios and websites of photographers — particularly portrait, family, and wedding photographers — and have recognized a fairly new trend (as of the past few years) where these photographers have opted to describe their approach to photography as that of natural light. Part of the reason for this, I suspect, is because the words “natural light photography” have a great sound to it. It sounds authentic and raw, and might be to photography what words like “organic” are to the food industry.

While I am not looking to discredit any of these photographers, or even the practice of taking pictures in natural light (that would, literally, be dumb) — I do want to draw some attention to this recent trend of natural light photography being used as a simple branding trick that can end up providing potential clients with sub-par photography services if expectations are not explicitly set.

So, kind of like how good product reviews are used to inform consumers about the thing they are considering purchasing, I want to…