Interior Photography Lighting
Large interior with 2 studio lights
Commercial Photography Lighting Techniques: Example 8
Equipment Used
* Canon 1ds * 24mm tilt shift * 24mm ISO100 f10 .3sec
* Speedotron Brownline 800ws two M11 heads
* 16″ Reflector (Beauty Dish), about 15′ behind the subjects
* 7″ Reflector, as high as stand will go pointed at ceiling
Shooting interiors is always challenging, but before setting up the lighting there three things that are very important to assess before you start.
- What is the purpose and goal of the photography session
- What commitments did you project to the client and what expectations do they have
- What is the budget or how much time do you have
Since I was hired for this shoot by a magazine the purpose is to create feature and ad photography for their client East Moon Asian Cafe. The restaurant had a limited budget which allowed for 2 hours of photography time. In this time frame we have to create 4 different shots highlighting separate areas of the restaurant; romantic (couple at booth), business (business meeting), ethnic (sushi bar), happy hour (bar). Also throw in some interiors for good measure! If you want to make money too using a simple lighting set up is the only way to accommodate these requirements…the bar shot is my favorite of the group.
The interior design of East Moon is gorgeous, lots of color, amazing sculptures for lighting, on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. It is very important to them to capture this in their images. This restaurant interior is very large, East Moon has a lot of space to light. Behind the happy people there is a glass wall separating the hibachi and bar areas, this is fortunate because it allowed me to put the light in the other room and direct it through the glass partition, which gives the light a subtly different quality, looks more like sunshine. The ceilings are purple and very high so I knew it would take additional light to bring out that detail. It was getting close to 4pm and the sun was low this was lighting the restaurant with highlights very nicely. This saved me time because the sunlight acts as the perfect source for specular highlights and fill so I don’t have to set up a second set of lights to accomplish this.
Thank you Loveland Photographic Society for the commercial photography lighting tips link to the Photography and Marketing blog.
