Tips For Interior and Real Estate Photography

Determining what exactly it is you want to portray in your photo is the first important decision you need to make when setting up your camera for a shoot.

Whether you want to capture the painterly details of a ceiling or the collection of impressive artworks on the walls of a home, will be the deciding factor on what the best perspective to shoot from is, ultimately leading to you fulfilling your brief.

Deciding on what type of lighting best suits your desired outcome is another decision you need to come to early on in your shoot. But deciding is one thing, implementing this decision is another thing entirely.

Natural lighting can be remarkably beautiful when utilised well but you will usually find the need to introduce artificial lighting of some sort, often finding a mixture of the two being the most successful. Dark and moody, or bright and high-key, deciding what is the best fit for your interior is key to developing the mood of your shoot.

Often an interior is so jam-packed with exciting and beautiful features you will struggle to fit it all into your images. You can either break it up, shooting separate photos of each feature and allowing each its space to shine, or you can capture the essence of the entire room through careful lens selection.

Wide angle lenses will give you the ability to explore the latter technique, capturing much more space in a single picture and also making a  room seem bigger than it is. It is not always possible to fit everything into one photograph, but having a wide angle lens in your kit will allow you to explore your options and develop a more expansive portfolio of images.

Even the steadiest of hands will succumb to camera shake when shooting handheld, particularly when you factor in the slower shutter speeds that are sometimes necessary when shooting indoors. The simplest and most effective way to eliminate blur is by shooting with a tripod. 

Tripods come in different sizes and budgets, with all of them being a better choice than not shooting with one at all when it comes to reducing blur. These simple to use accessories are also handy for carefully making adjustments to your compositions and ensuring all the angles are straight in your images.

As well as a tripod, remote controls or timers are a handy addition to your kit, helping to cut the effects of shaky hands.

No one enjoys cleaning up, but it is necessary to make sure your space is neat and tidy before you go about photographing it. It is easy to focus on the big issues you are facing and not take into account minor details, such as clumsily placed items or untidy surfaces, but these are the things that will capture your viewer’s eyes and they can really spoil your pictures.

If you can, hire a professional cleaner & stylist to run through before your shoot but if the cleaning falls on you, a quick tidy can go a long way.