I’ve always been struck by the beauty of light rays seeping into buildings, even in my pre-photography days.

Etched in my mind are scenes like Afternoon Chat by Fan Ho or Grand Central Terminal by Hal Morey. The scenes is interesting in itself. However, it is the dramatic shafts of light that contribute to the striking beauty of the portrait.

I love to dream about how this light must have been a regular occurrence in olden days, when cities were filled with smog and buildings were thick with smoke from cigarettes. I imagine these are the environments in which Fan Ho and Hal Morey created their beautiful pieces of work.

How can we create the perfect conditions in our homes for capturing life’s moments in some magical shafts of light?

1. The light rays

In photography, light is everything. For images with dramatic rays, it helps to seek light with special qualities.

Through windows, look for hard light creating harsh shadows on floors and walls. Note how the light changes around your house, depending on the time of day and season. Capturing this type of dramatic light will be easier towards the start or end of the day, when the sun is lower and will be shining directly through your windows.

As the seasons evolve, light changes so much in my house. Autumn and winter are the best times for me to capture images like the ones shown here. As we enter spring and summer here in Australia, the sun rises so quickly in the morning that it’s hard for me to capture the morning rays in this room. However, the rooms at the back of my house receive gorgeous golden sunset light this time of year. Therefore, I turn my focus there.

Related: How to keep a month-by-month light journal for your home