How to Photograph Residential Interior Spaces

I recently had a request to photograph a project for one of my clients who is an Interior Designer and after shooting the project, I felt that it incorporated a good example of some of the ways to light interior spaces. Here’s how I did it.

Assessing the Ambient Light

The first thing to consider when approaching an interior space is understanding the ambient light; direction, quality, and amount. The direction of the ambient light can usually be determined by the shadows it casts on the walls or floor behind the furniture or interior decor. The quality of the light can vary quite a bit. It can be hard light, like direct sun streaming through the windows which will create hot spots in the shape of the window on the interior space. It can be soft light, which will create a soft wash of light throughout the interior space and creates either very diffuse shadows, or sometimes shadows that are nearly non-existent. The amount of the ambient light is probably the most critical to proper exposure and balance and will determine if you will be able to shoot with predominantly ambient light, or if you will need to bring in your own lighting and use the ambient as accent or supplemental light.

Choosing the Best Angle

Once you have a grasp of the ambient light, which in reality should be immediately apparent when you walk into the space, the next step I usually take is to start looking for the best angle from which to photograph the room. Usually, there is only one “best” angle to choose. Sometimes though, a secondary angle can be found that is darn close to the primary angle and I will usually go ahead and photograph that as well and provide it to my clients as a supplemental image. Of course you can always dig deeper from multiple positions and pick out the architectural and interior details within the room as well as any unique pieces of furniture, interior decor, furnishings, and textiles (see pics below). This of course is all dependent on the amount of time you have and the specifications of your client.

Bracketing Your Exposures for Highlights and Shadows

Now that we have evaluated our environment and selected our angle, it’s time to shoot! Personally, I have a particular way I like to process and retouch my images to create the most natural rendering of the environment that I can achieve. A lot of that depends heavily on bracketing my images. I will run a series of brackets anywhere from 5-8 brackets depending on the situation. Usually this is in 1/3 stops, but sometimes I will vary the stops if I need to to allow for more highlights or more shadows. Keep in mind, there is no magic formula for this. A bracket sequence that renders a beautiful naturally light interior in one environment may become dramatically underexposed in another environment. It all takes some tweaking, but the more you understand the light and how its affecting the interior space, the more in tune you will be determining the appropriate exposure in stops and sequencing the right brackets.

Here are a few examples of exposing for highlights and shadows. Notice that on these brackets, Im really only concerned with getting shadow detail (overexposed bracket) and retaining highlight detail (underexposed bracket).

This bracket is overexposed to keep shadow detail

This bracket is underexposed to retain highlight detail.

Bringing in the Accent Lights

Now that we have our base exposure brackets, we need to capture the accent lighting. To do this, I will run two series of brackets; one bracket series for the ambient light, and one bracket series for the accent lights. In post, I will merge the two resulting files and mask out the color casts to create the final image. By doing it this way, I avoid getting any color contamination from the accent lights onto the interior and furnishings.

Here are the highlight and shadow brackets with the accent lights turned on.

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This bracket is underexposed to retain highlight detail in accent lights.

Removing Color Contamination from Interiors

Some folks may decide that this process is becoming to lengthy and choose to stop here and work with only the accent light exposures (final image below). However, here is a good example of why I take the process to the next level. When you only use the accent light exposures, you end up with an image that has a distinct color cast from the accent lights, which creates multiple white balance issues. I won’t go into detail about white balance here, that’s another post altogether, but here is an example of what this looks like using only the accent light exposures.

This blended image illustrates the color casts introduced by the accent lights.

A decent overall image, and as I mentioned, many stop here and call this good enough. This is certainly better than a single exposure frame, or even worse, using on camera flash! But I like to go the extra mile for my clients, so I take this further by reducing the color casts introduced by the accent lights and rendering the image as naturally as we would see it if we were standing in that space.

Below is the final retouched image without the color contamination. You can see the difference most notably in the shadow areas like the pillows, rug, and chairs, but also up on the second level banister area in the corner above the chandelier, which also draws more attention up and away from the focus of the image and is not a good thing. More subtly, you will also see this creeping into the white trim and and bookshelves as well as the coffee table. Our eyes are quite amazing at automatically removing color casts like this so when we are standing in the space, we don’t really notice these color casts, but on a photograph, it really becomes apparent.

This image shows the final image with color casts removed.

Go the Extra Mile!

I would encourage anyone shooting interiors to up their game by going the extra mile with their images. Not only will your work look amazing, but if your shooting for clients, they will really appreciate the extra effort and attention to detail. I know my clients have and that’s why they keep coming back for more! Besides, if your passionate about your work like I am, and your continually honing your craft, Architectural Digest might not be that far off. Wouldn’t that be awesome!

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A few months ago, I was commissioned to photograph the interiors for a local Shawnee home that had been destroyed by a fire. In the October 2011 issue of Kansas City Home & Garden, Brooke Pearl wrote up a wonderful feature article on this beautiful restoration. You can read the article on the KCH&G website.

Here are a few of my select images used from that feature article

white_kitchen_design

sofa_table_vignette

saving-grace-interior-photos-8

sage_green_master_bedroom_design

neutral_living_room_design3

neutral_living_room_design2

coastal_interior_decor

coastal_inspired_table_setting

coastal_inspired_dining_room

coastal_dining_placesettings

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