How is this effect achieved?

[Ellis Vener]

Some are Dave Dugdale

or Mike Kelly

and also the ubiquitous HDR of which there are about a googleplex worth of articles.

Now that was super interesting! I've never gotten into flash photography but I'm quite exited about that now.

I see that Dave was using standard flashes meant for on camera. But Mike was using some kind of a big flash. I assume that the big one has higher output and is therefore more versatile and useful for indoor flash real estate photography.

M. Kelly was handholding a Profoto B1 - essentially it is a 500 to 2watt-second range TTL controlled flash- just like small Speedlites but with about 2.5 stops more energy on the top end. and for interior work TTL isn't necessary, certainly given the cost difference between a single B1 and and all manual 640 watt-second Paul C. Buff Einstein and a flash meter.



For the attached shot I used flash units ranging from 2400 w-s pack and head systems down to little bitty AA battery powered slaves like this one: http://www.genuinecure.info/5100edae31/impact-sf-dtwx24-mini-dome-wide-slave-flash



What counts more than "which flash" to buy is thinking about where you'd put your lights and why you'd add light to an existing scene. When photographing architectural interiors (and exteriors for that matter) you have to think of them as a set for a play or a movie - that is what motivates the way I light: figuring out inherent drama of a collection of inanimate objects - and also as sculpture.



What do you want viewer to notice? How will you use light and color direct their attention through the scene?

Those are the important questions to be thinking about, what lights to add and where to putthem all of your technique will flow from the answers to those questions.

In this photo I want viewers to first notice the design of the space (I was working for the architect) and how that interior design works for the architects client, the art consultant / framing company. I want the eye to go from the foreground to the background andto achieve that I used color ( primarily the choice and arrangements of prints on the table, the red of the vase against far wall, and the bluish tint you see through the windows), the balance of light fro foreground to background, and the composition of elements and how they work within the frame, to accomplish that. Even that light (and flare from it) right up in the top right corner and the red "EXIT" sign o the ceiling are deliberate and consciously arrived at elements in the photograph.


Interior of a fine art consultantcy and framing company. Architect: Palmer Schooley and Associates, Houston, TX.

 

[sssesq]

I am practicing to become proficient in Arch Photog (usually do sports - no money) so I started shooting my house (to avoid embarrassment). Here is a family room shot...(Not too bad, I've been told - lamp??) but the second one had a bunch of deficiencies (the dark tunnel for one). Where would you have placed your strobe lights if you were shooting this scene? Single exposures (14 mm is too broad, Y/N?). Thanks Ellis, you were shooting like your example 10 years ago? Talk about a pioneer!





Exterior (doing landscaping - clone or crop it out).

 

[Ellis Vener]

"Thanks Ellis, you were shooting like your example 10 years ago? Talk about a pioneer!"

Thank you for the comment. The two examples I've posted were shot more like 20 years ago.

Theres a a great but now old book on photographing architecture that I learned a lot from. But i also used my experience from handling industrial and advertising assignments, looking at paintings and movies. I am still busy learning.

the book I mentioned is Norman McGrath's "Photographing Buildings Inside and Out". http://www.amazon.com/Photographing-Buildings-Inside-Norman-McGrath/dp/082304016X