There are breathtaking homes with superb design, architecture, and lighting. And there are some homes that lack all three of these at the same time. The essential goal of a residential interior photographer is to make even the ugliest home look captivating. Here are a few tips to help you better understand how to go about hiring a professional residential interior photographer.
Equipment Being Used
For residential interior photography, the home will usually dictate what equipment will be used by a residential interior photographer. Some homes designed by incredible architects are designed specifically with natural lighting in mind and won’t need much extra lighting. Other homes, however, unfortunately will.
An exceptional residential interior photographer will always carry at least the bare essentials needed for interior photography, which may include:
- A Tripod
- Non-distorting lenses
- Wide angle lense (As long as it isn’t too wide.)
- And some might even be equipped with architecture specific lenses
Faster lenses are best, as interior photography will have much less available light to work with.
Lighting Basics
Experienced architects understand the importance of light and design houses around this. If the property being shot has a well designed lighting system, you might be able to get away with only using existing light.
Typically, a good residential interior photographer will turn on all the lights in the house. This will add more depth and color variance to the photos. They often do such a great job that the lights do not show up as reflections in pictures, windows, mirrors, or other reflective surfaces.
One other things to consider when it comes to natural lighting are window sizes and the outside light that comes in from them. Bright and large windows often cause a variety of problems in an interior shoot. They distract the viewer and can cause exposure problems. Planning your shoot when the sun isn’t at its strongest or entering directly into the window is an easy solution to this.
Room Preparation
For residential interior photography, the goal is to showcase an attractive and beautiful home. You’d be quite lucky to find a home with everything perfectly staged and orderly. Often, an interior residential photographer is going to want to rearrange furniture and tidy up the area.
Every room has a critical element that you will want to feature prominently in your photos. Moving around objects is a great way to lure viewers’ eyes to these elements. Simply placing bright objects (like a beige vase) on these key elements (fireplaces, stairs, grand piano, etc.) will make them stand out from other objects in the room.
Composition
After all the pre-production phases of interior photography are completed by your photographer, now comes the actual photo taking! The following are a few tips to look for in a great residential interior photographer’s shots.
They Make Rooms Look Spacious
To make rooms appear more spacious, great residential interior photographers avoid shooting straight at walls. This will make the photo look flat and can also warp the perspective. Instead, they shoot into the corners of rooms. This will create more depth and make the room appear larger. Additionally, photographing from a lower angle and with a wider angled lens is also a great way residential interior photographers increase the perceived size of the room.
They Know How to Focus on Attention Grabbing Areas
When a good interior photographer shoots any room, they often select the most interesting parts. Ideally, they will choose objects of importance or parts of the room with more interesting architecture.
They Keep the Lines Straight
Outstanding residential interior photographers will often times always make sure that the vertical and horizontal lines in there photos are straight. Crooked lines are signs of poor technical skills and will detract from the image.
Know Your Goal
If you’re in the market to hire a residential interior photographer, and need a simple guide to what to look for when searching for an elite one, make sure to follow the tips above, ultimately making your search that much easier.
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