For the past six weekends, I’ve been building myself a storage shed in my backyard. This past Labor Day I finally completed it and started loading it up with my junk stuff.

I had been taking photographs all along it’s progress and in looking back at all of the images, I thought I would share a technique I use to balance both the indoor and outdoor light.

This first image was early on in the framing stage.  You don’t think of this as an interior photograph, but if I had just exposed for the sky, the framing would have been underexposed, and you would have seen no detail in the framing at all.   Alternately, if I tried to properly expose the framing, the sky would be blown out.   Solution — balance the light with your flash!

Above is a photo I took (after moving items from the garage to the shed) on Labor Day using an on-camera flash with a diffuser. Obviously, it’s not a beautiful home interior photograph, but the technique is similar to what you would use.   I manually exposed for the window — which rendered a very dark picture with a small, well exposed, rectangular portion (the window).   I then fired up the flash and set no FEC, leaving it at +0.   The flash did all the thinking for exposure of the inside of the shed, leaving the well exposed window!

Next time you are photographing a kids party, family gathering or real estate indoors with a window or open door in your background — take a moment to expose for the bright outside light, use your flash (or several flashes for real estate photography) and then fire away.  Your pictures will look great without a big white, blown out window — but rather the scene as your eyes see it.

After completing the job I decided to play with a couple strobes when taking an “After” shot. I placed one strobe on a lightstand and bounced it off the ceiling at 1/8 power. A second strobe at 1/32 power was placed on the floor with a snoot attached and aimed it to hit the lower edge of the dresser and the closet doors. I shot it from the point of view of Henry (9 months).

Painting is not one of my most favorite chores, but when the job is finished, it is rewarding.