Taking Pictures of Home Interiors

Whether you want to show off your new interior design on Instagram, or you’re getting ready to list your home for sale, there are many occasions when you may wish to photograph your home’s interiors. And in doing so, you may discover that your home rarely looks as good in images as it does in real life.

There are several reasons why this tends to happen. Flashes, color balance, and an inability to fit everything into one frame can sometimes lead to blown out whites, over-saturated darks, and a strange, fishbowl effect. It’s simple to correct many of these problems as you take the pictures, though, so you can truly show off your interiors in all their glory.

Use Natural Light

Natural light will help convey the true colors of your home better than a flash or overhead lighting will. In fact, the color of your lights may directly impact the color of your photo.

So, try waiting for the brightest time of day in whichever room you’re trying to capture, and open up your shades wide. Use mirrors if necessary to amplify the natural light, and turn off any artificial light sources to get the best color and saturation possible.

Rearrange Your Furnishings

The biggest obstacle most people run into when shooting their interiors is the lack of space to fit the whole room into a shot. Often times, as you try back up, you run into a wall or some furnishings. This leads people to try out wider angle lenses, but this in turn gives you the dreaded fishbowl effect.

So, instead of shooting with a wider lens, try moving things around to give you more space. If a couch is in your way, slide it to the side temporarily so you can get those extra inches.

You may also want to get more creative in how you show a room, breaking it into parts, rather than trying to get the whole thing into the frame at once.

Square Things Up

Another way to avoid bending frames and strange layouts is to square up your lens with the walls or other straight lines in the room. The window frames, the walls, large pictures, cabinets – anything square will help you get a more centered shot, which in turn will give you better results in the final image.

Be sure that you’re shooting straight on when you do this. Shooting directly straight ahead after framing with something will show off the proportions of the room better than attempting an angle.

Get Low

While it’s true that you view the room from your height at all times, this doesn’t always show it off to its best in a photograph. Try getting down low – about 40-inches off the ground at the most – and shooting from here. You’ll find that your results are a little better than they would be if you were working up high.

Take Better Images

You may need to play around with a combination of these techniques to see what works best for your home. In time, though, you’re sure to find the combination that lets you show off your interiors in their best light.