It's not as easy as it seems to take good photos of homes. If you're taking pics this weekend (or sometime soon) for the Smallest, Coolest Contest, you might find these tips helpful. And please, of course, share your own...
Our Tips:
• De-clutter and clean up your home beforehand - items such as bottles of lotion on the nightstand, unmade beds, full garbage cans, and raised toilet seats are distracting
• Take as many photos as possible
• Pay attention to lighting and try not to use a flash
• Try getting down on the floor and up on a chair, experiment with different angles
• Take photos both of vignettes and full room shots
• Take your time and don't rush
• Don't be afraid of cropping
• Double-check the photos before submitting them to be sure you've chosen the best images and that they're light enough
Tips from Contest Entrants and House Tour Homeowners:
• Standing back at different angles gives a room depth and dimension
• I think photographing rooms in natural light helps
• Cleaning up clutter really helps keep the focus on the room
• Compose objects so that there is breathing room
• Find a time of day when lighting looks the best for the subject
• Take multiple shots, then pick out the ones you like. Sometimes, it just isn't perfect the first time around
• When I take photos, I usually take them from every possible angle and use elements like doorways and furniture to frame the view. Sometimes the least likely angle creates the best shot
• It's ok to cheat and move things around a little for the shot
• I suspect most people take photographs dead-on and focus on one thing (the couch, a table, etc). Sometimes you can find a good shot by looking through the viewfinder and moving around the room
(Edited from a post published 03.30.07)
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Comments (16)
For overall shots, back into a corner.
Don't be afraid to remove ominous foreground shapes (things that you cant really tell what they are).
Overcast days will give both softer light and longer exposures. Direct light streaming in is generally not a good thing for photos, unless use want to use a fill light. (to reduce contrast).
Use high F-numbers for better focus overall. Selective focus is over used and hard to do correctly.
The three most important tools to make better interior shots...
Tripod
Tripod
Tripod
Location is second to a tripod in this case!
I'm a magazine art director and have spent a fair amount of time on home shoots. A few basic tips for the casual shooter:
-As phauxtoe so eloquently stated, TRIPOD. You can't take a focused picture without flash otherwise. And flash will ruin the shot. Use the auto timer so you don't shake the camera.
-Arrange the furniture so it looks good in the shot. It may look ridiculous in real life, but perfect through the lens.
-Use the white balance settings on your camera to compensate for tungsten or fluorescent lighting. But natural light is best.
-Use fill lights for dark corners. Even a simple adjustable desk lamp can work. (Just keep it out of the shot!)
-Don't make it look too perfect. Style it with signs of life.
-Shoot whole rooms but also details of interesting corners or accessories. You can't really pick up textures in wide shots.
Yes, take some shots of interesting corners or accessories...but please, keep that to a minimum. It seems as if vignettes are all we are being shown lately. While your collections or color combinations might be of interest, what we are really hoping is to get an overall impression of how your space feels and flows.
I thought the pictures for contest entries should convey your home as you live in it, not what "look[s] ridiculous in real life, but perfect through the lens." You want your home to look nice, of course, but this is not a photography contest... it's (basically) an interior design contest.
"Style it with signs of life"? Even better: just live in it.
david, yes it's nice to have photos that show the way we live but if you've looked at past contests it's the apts. that are beautifully photographed that get the most attention and win.
It's one thing to submit photos of your apt. with the desk full of paperwork, the toilet lid up, the CDs in disarray but these entries will be passed over in favor of the great photos.
Live in it, style it like you live in it...whatever. The AT audience is exceptionally "interior design photo" savvy and that has to be taken into account if you're entering to win a contest in such a community.
So, just don't put the same vase of flowers in every shot.
Great info!
man, I'm slow,
all this time I've had an image of a fake toe in my head.
phauxtoe = photo
for an overall room shot go with a wide angle lens and get everything in there
Try standing in the corner which, itself, has the least visual information and shoot the opposite corner, so you can get the most stuff in the widest shot.
i turned off my flash and it made all the difference because the pictures look so much better.
Natural light is the best. My Cloud White (BM) walls look the most gorgeous with 4 pm light.
Shooting as the sun rises or sets is a good way to get soft light without hard edges, while keeping the colors more vivid and natural.
If your place is only 500 square feet, do we really need 47 pictures of the space?
I'd like to add to farmhousemodern's comment "Arrange the furniture so it looks good in the shot. It may look ridiculous in real life, but perfect through the lens," working in the industry as well.
What he/she is suggesting isn't to fake the look of the room but to compensate for the fact that a camera doesn't "see" space the same way the human eye does. So while there may be a comfortable 2 feet between your sofa and your coffee table, through the lens, it may look like 2 inches. If you move the coffee table further away from the sofa it suddenly looks ridiculous in the room but the camera now sees it as about 2 feet away (how it normally looks in real life).
It's something almost all interiors photographers do. It's not a trick, it's just trying to get the camera to represent what your eyes would see in 3D.
Tripod? No. That would slow you down immensely. I have a DSLR, though. I turned off the flash and waited until the light was streaming. I also used a wide angle lens, and got amazing shots (i was shooting for real estate this week)