INTERIOR PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographing interiors is not as straight forward as most people might think. Some of the most common issues arise form trying to balance competing light sources and lens distortion issues.

A lot of interior shots do not get a pleasing balance between light sources. Interiors are usually much more dimly lit than exteriors (usually seen through windows). The light coming through windows is usually severely blown out and distracts from the main purpose of interior photography – to capture a room that is pleasing to the eye and hopefully (in the case of real-estate images) convinces as many people as possible to come and view the property. Harsh white light streaming through a window (or around gaps in window coverings) is not inviting and does not give the impression of a comfortable and liveable space.

There is also the issue of the colour balance between different light sources. Interior lighting is more “yellow” and sunlight is more “blue” and unless these are successfully balanced the different colour temperatures make the image appear very unnatural.

The second issue is ensuring that converging lines are treated in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Ensuring that window ledges, bench tops, ceiling cornices, shirtings, door frames etc. are perfectly horizontal/vertical or create pleasing converging lines to a point in infinity increases in difficulty with the number of such lines and smaller spaces that require more extreme wide angle lenses to capture the interior space in the frame.

A Professional Photographer needs to be able to address these issues and create an image that looks pleasing to an eye. When someone views an image they may not know why it is pleasing to their eye, but they do know if it is pleasing or not.

If you have taken your own interior images or had another photographer take them for you, go back and have a look and see how well they stack up against these issues.