Yesterday and last night I got a chance to do a type of photography I haven’t practiced in a long time: The often under-appreciated skill of interior photography. I say under-appreciated with confidence as I am as guilty as many other pro photographers who somewhat disregard the skill involved in this genre. You can look at a beautifully lit room and the brain will immediately settle into a comfort zone of recognition and association with all the lovely emotions tagged with “home”. This is of course exactly the point of the majority of interior photography. If you’re trying to show the beauty of a subtle arrangement in a room, you are definitely not going to be using outlandish lighting patterns and blasted colours. The aim isn’t to shock through photography but to present the product. And what an evil product the home is to try and light well.
Think about it for a minute. How many angles and relative distances are involved? How many colour temperatures, light sources and types, and then of course you have the patterns involved and textures of the furniture and walls. On top of all that you’re in a confined space more often than not forced into using a wide angle lens so you have converging lines etc to think about too while you wedge yourself into a space barely wide enough for you tripod.
Working with Conley & Co. in Edinburgh, a fantastically talented mother and daughter outfit with style way beyond anything I could do justice to, I set about trying to do just that. As soon as I started however I remembered a few of the pitfalls I would be dealing with and tried my best to get around them. Didn’t really work. The chess game going on in my head involving the many lighting issues in play got more and more complicated. I love a challenge though so this was great fun and I was eventually getting the results I wanted. Staircases are usually the centrepiece of these New Town Edinburgh flats and this was no exception. It was causing me no end of problems with shadows though. Eventually with a combo of the in house spot lights, a shoot through brolly and a couple of radio triggered speedlights I managed to get an evenly lit and exposed shot. My favourite shot of the day was the simplest however. A beautiful Greco styled mantelpiece with a pair of sculptures on top. Very simple and elegant and one for the portfolio. Even in this kind of situation is pays not to complicate things just for the sake of it. Another valuable reminder to take away with me.
All in all it was great to have the chance to do a style of photography that uses a different mentality to what I’m used to these days. I shoot quickly, capturing moments of people’s and city’s experiences. It revolves around the idea that I am in the right place at the right time to capture a instant that can convey a message. This job was the opposite. Having as much time (…ish) that I wanted to solve a lighting puzzle that really taxed my knowledge was refreshing and a real challenge. I will never blindly flick the page over an interior shot again without at least trying to reverse engineer the lighting set up and hopefully learn something from it. Appreciate the pain of the staircase. My new interior mantra.
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