The Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000

My good friend and frequent creative co-conspirator, Jill Marasigan, recently launched a design and event planning business, P31 Collaborative. Jill asked me to photograph some of the interior spaces that feature her handy work with the intent to use the final images as part of her professional portfolio. So far the collection includes a house in Queen Anne and a loft in South Lake Union.

While it seems simple enough, interior photography is trickier than it looks. The first task is to find an angle that encompasses the “spirit” or “feel” of the room while still highlighting a few key features. Using a wide angle lens and dialing it back to 11mm may seem like the way to go; and for some shots, that approach is perfect. In other cases I found that using narrower focal lengths and being selective is more effective.

Once composition is set, lighting is the next thing to figure out. Both times I shot for Jill, I brought my ENTIRE lighting kit. Back in October, this consisted of a Nikon SB-800, a LumoPro LP-120 and several stands, umbrellas and reflectors. When we shot the loft in February of this year, the kit had been expanded to include four monolights, softboxes, grids and snoots. Even though I upped my watt-seconds by a factor of ten, accurately lighting an interior still remains a delicate balancing act that requires clever problem solving and attention to detail.

The shot of the spiral staircase above was made using two speedlights, umbrellas and the Tokina 11-16mm lens. The stairs are on the second floor of a Queen Anne home that belongs to a Seattle night club owner. I loved the way all the wood, metal and lighting work together in the space. To get this all in view, I wound up lying down with my camera inches off the floor. To get the nice glow coming from the wall lamps, I used a slow shutter speed (1/25th second) to allow for some ambient light. I used speedlights to fill in the rest.

At both the house and the loft, I shot the Nikon D300 tethered into a MacBook Pro and Adobe Lightroom. This allows me to quickly and accurately check focus, exposure and composition. It also allows the client (Jill) to review the images and provide creative direction. Personally, I find that real time feedback from the client invaluable. For technical shoots like this where the smallest details are important, it is incredibly helpful to get the whole “team” involved in creating and reviewing the shots. Since Adobe Lightroom does not have tethered support for the D300 (although it should be coming in LR 3.0), I use a nifty little program called Sofortbild. Using this in conjunction with Lightroom’s auto-import features makes shooting tethered quite simple.

Improvising and responding to the environment is key to any photograph, and it is not different with interiors. The office shot above is the result of ditching standard techniques and experimenting with a unique feature of the location. The other two walls of this office (the ones you cannot see) are opaque, white, glass doors on slides. Instead of opening the doors and shooting a strobe through an umbrella or softbox into the office, we blasted right through the glass. I put a monolight behind each closed door, dialed it up to nearly full power, and snuck my camera lens in through a tiny opening. The result was soft, even lighting that accurately simulates the natural environment of the room.

Without question, the toughest room to photograph is always the bathroom. Reflective surfaces, tight quarters and plenty of corners, doors, shelves and knobs make these spaces a virtual lighting minefield. It took a sausage factory to shoot the loft bathroom below. My camera is setup on a tripod just outside the bathroom door. Above the camera is a large softbox and Bowens Gemini 500 watt-second strobe to provide general fill. Just inside the bathroom on the right is a closet with a hamper. I put a Calumet Travelite 750 on the hamper with a 42” diffusion disc to soften the light. This light lit the drawers below the sink. To light the inside of the shower, I put another Bowens Gemini with a standard umbrella reflector pointed at the back wall. The finishing touch was a LumoPro LP-120 on a stand by the camera. I bounced this flash off the ceiling at an angle that would light up the back corner. In post production I removed hot spots on the TV and far tile wall by cloning properly exposed portions of the same surfaces. I applied a slight vignette to give the scene some depth and wa-la: SAUSAGE.

These photographs showcase Jill’s prowess in selecting and designing everything from room layout to tile to furniture to fixture and art selection. Perhaps my favorite thing about shooting interiors is the opportunity to interpret another person’s creativity and vision. To see more of Jill’s work and learn about everything P31 Collaborative has to offer, stop by their website here.