A set of nonnegative lighting basis images representing a scene illuminated by a set of stationary light sources is recovered from a set of input images of the scene that were acquired by a stationary camera. Each image is illuminated by a combination of the light sources, and at least two images in the set are illuminated by different combinations. The set of input images is factorized into the nonnegative lighting basis images and a set of indicator coefficients, wherein each lighting basis image corresponds to an appearance of the scene illuminated by one of the light sources, and wherein each indicator coefficient indicates a contribution of one of the light sources to one of the input images.