How to Photograph Architecture (Interior)
byPhilip Greenspun
This is an example-based tutorial on photographing building interiors.
People and Interiors
The most commercially profitable images of interiors are those devoid of people. Shelter magazines like to enable their readers to project themselves into a pictured dream house. That projection isn't possible if the rooms are already filled up with strangers. Nonetheless, many of the pictures of interiors that are the most successful as photographs are those that show people relating to what the architects have built. Here, for example are a few snapshots from
The photo below, of the Great Hall at Ellis Island, wouldn't work nearly as well without the two teenagers waiting where so many immigrants waited for so many hours and days (from the photo.net New York exhibit):
People don't always improve an image but they always change it. Below, for example, is the Great Kiva in Aztec Ruins National Monument in Aztec, New Mexico (from the photo.net New Mexico exhibit). The photo at left, without people, conveys more accurately the feeling of being in the kiva. Probably this is because the people aren't using the architecture in the way that the architects intended; they are merely posing for an unseen photographer. The human presence doesn't ruin the image, however. It might be a better choice for a travel guidebook than the empty kiva.
San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art opened as a beautiful building with hardly any art. Pictures of the stark atrium without people might give a viewer the impression that the museum hadn't opened yet when the photos were taken. With the people, though, the idea of a building filled with human beings fruitlessly searching for art is conveyed (fromthe photo.net San Francisco guide).
Careful with the Ligh
Most camera equipment is designed for handheld use outdoors. As soon as you take them indoors you discover that, on average, it is much darker indoors than outdoors. You won't be able to create a sharp image handholding your camera indoors. Suppose that you stop the lens aperture down to f/11 to ensure adequate depth of field (objects at differing distances from the lens all in reasonably sharp focus). You'll now need to leave the shutter open for a 1/2 second to get enough light to the film to make an image. You won't be able to hold your camera steady for 1/2 second. You have two obvious options: (1) carry a tripod, and (2) illuminate the scene with an electronic flash.
A flash is a lot easier to carry than a tripod. Many cameras have built-in flashes. So why not use the flash for an interior architecture photo? Because you won't capture the architecture.
Rooms and houses are designed around light. Architects who've read A Pattern Language will tell you that you need light from two sides of a room in order to be comfortable in that room. If there is a window on only one wall, the light inside the room will be too contrasty. Architects are very careful with windows and artificial lights.
What about simply sticking the camera on a tripod and using the self-timer or cable release to make a long steady exposure? It can work, as in this photo below, of medieval Skansen village in Stockholm (from the photo.net Sweden guide):
We don't mind the contrast and the fact that we can't see detail in a lot of the furniture or the door. The photo gives us an idea of what it is like to use a desk hundreds of years ago in Sweden. A commercial client, however, anxious to sell desks, would demand that a flash or hot light be used to reduce the contrast and render detail in the shadows.
Where a room has a well-designed artificial lighting system, a commercial architectural photographer will often use the existing lights and fixtures to balance the natural light. How is this possible when the sunlight from the windows is so much more powerful than typical incandescent bulbs? The photographer travels with a huge bag of bulbs and will go through a room replacing every bulb with a higher output photoflood. In addition to higher output, tungsten photo bulbs have a consistent color temperature. If a closer match to the color temperature of the window light is desired, the light bulbs through the house may be replaced with electronic flashes. You can buy modestly powerful slave flashes that screw into a light bulb socket from Smith Victor and Morris.
Hollywood goes farther. If it isn't sunny outside and they want warm light from the windows, they park a bank of powerful HMI lights outside the window pointing into the room.
If you're lazy, you can just set the tripod on the floor and accept whatever color temperature comes your way:
