Abstract: According to the disclosed embodiments, a three-dimensional (3D) reference environment having one or more environmental lighting reference (ELR) sources is determined by a controller. Also, characteristics of the one or more ELR sources are tracked by the controller. Then, a lighting environment generated by the one or more ELR sources in the 3D reference environment is replicated by the controller by dynamically and automatically controlling one or more physical light sources that illuminate a physical subject according to the characteristics of the one or more ELR sources.