1. A method for recovering a set of lighting basis images from a set of two or more input images of a scene illuminated by a set of two or more light sources, wherein each light source is stationary, comprising: factorizing the set of input images into the lighting basis images and a set of indicator coefficients, wherein each lighting basis image is a nonnegative image that corresponds to an appearance of the scene illuminated by only one of the light sources, wherein the indicator coefficients are entries in a binary lighting indicator matrix, and wherein each indicator coefficient indicates a contribution of one of the light sources to one of the input images, wherein the set of input images is acquired by a stationary camera, wherein in each input image the scene is illuminated by a combination of the light sources, and wherein at least two images in the set of input images are illuminated by different combinations of the light sources, wherein distances from one or more of the light sources to the scene are less than one or more orders of magnitude larger than a size of the scene, and where the recovering and factorizing are performed in a processor.