Ambient light is what’s available in the scene, usually a combination of sunlight and light from interior fixtures. Adding light (flash) of a similar direction and color as the prevailing ambient can brighten a scene while retaining a natural look.
Joining, or ‘stitching’, several overlapping photos together is a great way to include more of a scene than could be embraced by a single photo. Here are a couple of examples, each composed of 3-4 individual photos. In both instances I particularly wanted to include the treetops.
Often I get booked near the middle of the day when the sun is high and the shadows short or absent. “Flat lighting” as it’s described in the trade. Early and late in the day the sun is low, the shadows long and the light warm and buttery, making for more interesting & attractive interior photos in my opinion.
Late afternoon sun pours into this new unit in a Kawana estate.
I’ve had my fun, now back to work. One of my first jobs of the new year was this fantastic home where throwing back the bifolds welcomed in the world outside (I know, I should write marketing copy 😉 But a water feature just inside the front door could be a trap for the unwary… or the plain fonged… coming home after a late night!
Working methodically in one direction is all well and good, but you may miss good things if you don’t consider alternatives. This shot resulted from me turning around as I was about to leave a room that I’d already photographed. Lesson to myself :-
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You get some great skies looking out across the flat plain from S Coolum Rd toward Mt Ninderry.
Cloud trails radiate out from a point on the horizon.
Aack! Lured away by the potential social reach of Facebook, I haven’t posted here since May. Time to devote a little more – time – to this blog, if only because Google rewards relevant activity on websites with better search rankings.
Beautiful late afternoon light on a property near Lake Cooroibah
Property photographers seldom have the luxury of scouting a property in order to choose the best time of day when the sun is showcasing the home. Hopefully the vendor has a good idea of when that might be, and communicates this to their sales agent who books the photographer. So I was rather pleased to turn up at this home yesterday and find the afternoon sun and venetian blinds playing nice together.
However it IS possible to manipulate light if there’s not enough of it in the right place. In this shot, the light pattern on the floor is natural, however the stripes on the dining table were created by placing a flash outside the window on the left.
A couple of my favorite exteriors from recent shoots. I think the appeal for me is…er…voyeuristic? The eye is pulled in from the dark fringes toward the bright interior of the scene.
Here’s an interesting article that reports research examining the way in which people scan RE listings. “Researchers tracking the eye movements of subjects who looked at online home listings found that more than 95% of users viewed the first photo—the one that shows the exterior of the home—for a total of 20 seconds. After that, their eyes tended to flit all over the screen…”
Interesting that while the front shot garnered most attention (20 secs), there was a 5-way tie for second place, with photos of other rooms sharing equal eyeball time of 8 secs.
Read the whole article here