Interior Photography: Tips for Photographing Room Interiors
Why should you try to understand how interior photography works? Why do you need to know how to take better photographs of interior spaces? Well, aside from the fact that you can make money from practicing interior and architectural photography, having the right skills can also be a lot of help especially if you are trying to sell your house or documenting your room furnishings for insurance purposes. It can also be quite handy even if you just want to document how your son’s room looked when he was little! Well, you surely get the idea.
Interior photography is quite an interesting field but it is sad to note that a lot of budding photographers don’t take the time to perfect this skill. Well, perhaps this has something to do with the inherent obstacles present in doing this type of photography, particularly those that involve lighting and equipment. If you are quite serious in perfecting your interior photography skills, here are some tips and tricks that you may find useful:
Get the Right Equipment
Arm yourself with a DSLR camera. While you can probably get away just by using your old and trusted compact digital camera, using a DSLR will produce clearer and sharper images – even if you are shooting in low lighting conditions and using higher ISO settings.
Have the right lenses. Yes, you can always use your standard lenses but having a wide variety of lenses will allow you greater flexibility to get the most out of every situation. For best results, invest in a good quality wide angle lens.
Make sure you have a tripod. Interior photography involves shooting with slow shutter speeds so you will definitely need a tripod to avoid camera shakes. Having a remote release will also help a lot in stabilizing your shots.
Make Photoshop your best friend. Using a photo editing software can do a lot in improving the aesthetic quality of your photos so you should really consider using one.
Use the Right Lighting
To come up with stunning interior photos, avoid using artificial lighting (fluorescent light) at all cost since it will only cast harsh, ugly shadows on your images. For best results, try using diffused lighting or bounce your light source on a nearby wall or ceiling. You can also use natural lighting especially if you are not overly concerned that you will lose some little details along the way. However, if you are planning to use this option, you may want to shoot at dusk to minimize exposure problems.
Now, if you don’t have any remaining options left and you have to use artificial lighting to illuminate the room, then you should definitely choose the right white balance setting to complement the type of light that you are using. You should also consider using a grey card in setting the correct white balance for a particular room. How do you use it? Well, it’s really quite simple. You just photograph the grey card and change your white balance settings accordingly. If you don’t have one, then you can use a white sheet of paper for the purpose. Now, all you need to do is to turn off your flash and you’re off to a good start.
Apply the Proper Photography Techniques
After making sure that you have the proper equipment and lighting, you need to apply the proper composition techniques and choose the best viewpoint from which to shoot. As a general rule, you should always apply the Rule of Thirds, keep your vertical and horizontal lines straight, choose the best viewpoint and manipulate your depth of field (DOF) to make sure you get even the smallest details of all the elements in the room.
Will these tips help improve your interior photography skills? Yes! … They definitely will so grab your gear and start practicing!
Have fun shooting interior spaces,
Ray Baker
