Architectural

My living room prompts me to write a couple of words about indoors architectural photography:

Amberglen Court, Photo Michael Willems

To take architecture:

  1. Use a wide angle lens – 10-30mm on a crop SLR camera. That gets the rooms in.
  2. Not too wide though. If you shoot everything at 10mm, rooms will look huge, and people who see the home in real life will be disappointed. Underpromise and overdeliver is a good strategy.
  3. Focus a third of the way in – but when depth of field is not sufficient to get it all in, keep close objects sharp.
  4. Consider shooting from a lower vantage point. This makes rooms look bigger without exaggerating.
  5. Use bounced flash, if you use flash.
  6. Balance outside light with flash. Set aperture and shutter for outside, then fill rooms with flash.
  7. If that means slow shutter speeds, use a tripod.
  8. Keep the strongest verticals vertical.
  9. Compose to avoid clutter.
  10. Capture the feeling of the room.

Simple, really: these basic rules will make your architecture photos better. If you are bored today, and want a photo assignment: shoot your home indoors.

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *