An important part of interior photography is shot selection. Choosing what areas to photograph and how to photograph them. There are lots of choices, portrait or landscape, straight on or at an angle, wide angle or normal lens, with or without people etc etc… So how do you choose?
I have been running a short course on interior photography at Central St Martins. Part of the course is image analysis. Looking at how the choice of photograph differs from magazine to magazine and between typical estate agent shots and the design press. The result is very nerdy, but I thought it might be of interest to architects and designers planning a photoshoot.
First, as a base we looked at right move…
All shots are landscape, 90% are angled, there are no people, most include a view of 3 walls, almost all include a window and are with wide angle lenses. Even spread of shots though the house. So no surprise there
Next we looked are Real Homes…
A bid difference from Right Move. Half are Portrait, half have no window, a quarter have people, half are at an angle half are square on, most show 1 or 2 walls and a 1/3 are with a normal lens. Big emphasis on kitchens
Finally we looks at Living Etc
Living etc was a surprise. On the edition we looked at, there were no landscape shots at all! 2/3 where square shots and most showed only one wall. People were in about a 1/3 of shots are 1/3 were with a normal lens. A good spread on rooms but more on hallways and reception rooms.
What do we learn from this? Well, when I discuss shot lists with clients, they are normally interested in shots showing a lot of the room and covering a lot of rooms. This is very different from the shots selected by the design press.