In the age of Instagram, it’s not an overstatement to say that a killer interior photograph is the requisite for, well, EVERYTHING. How many times have you scrolled through your feed to see magazine-quality interior photography and just wished you could capture the same?
Elyse Kennedy is a commercial and residential photographer from Belfast who champions the use of natural light throughout all of her work. For the past six years, she has photographed some of the best interiors and architecture around the UK and Ireland. And wait for it... she calls Airbnb and The Modern House clients.
It's safe to say Elyse knows a thing or two about photographing homes. So, in true Modern Broker Style, we asked Elyse to share FIVE simple tips on how to elevate interior photos from good to great.
Over to you Elyse…
1. Natural lighting
I always prefer to photograph a room using just the natural lighting that is available. Time of day and the position of your room/ home can affect the result you get. However, I find it best to shoot a space when the sun isn’t streaming through a window as this can create harsh shadows and highlighted areas that can be hard to balance out when it comes to editing.
2. Position (where you hold your camera/phone)
To get the most accurate representation of a room ideally you want to shoot around lower chest height. The aim is to create equal floor and ceiling height with the rest of your room or selected area in the middle of the image. This way the room won’t appear to top or bottom-heavy.
3. Angles
My favourite way to photograph a room or an area of the interior is to photograph it straight on. You can use the guidelines on your phone or camera to make sure everything is lined up and as straight as possible, and this way you shouldn’t have too much distortion.
You can always straighten things up even more when you go to edit, but if you take a few extra seconds before taking the photograph you’ll find that you won’t need to do too much in post-production.
When photographing from an angle, I also like to zoom in to your subject slightly more so that the room doesn’t appear unrealistic in terms of size/ appearance.
4. Small room?
When photographing smaller spaces I like to focus more on details or certain areas within that room. You want to avoid squeezing yourself into a corner and trying to get the whole room within the image as this way it can look unrealistic and distorted. Shooting straight on is best for smaller spaces.
5. How best to edit your photos
My favourite way to edit on my phone is by using the Lightroom app. However, if you don’t have this or don’t want to pay for it then there are a whole selection of free editing apps available to download. I also think the editing tools available through Instagram are great and offer you pretty much everything you need to get the best out of your image.
For interiors, I don’t like to go too heavy on the editing. Instead, I prefer to keep things looking more natural and how they would in real life. Typically I will increase the exposure (making sure to not overexpose any areas), reduce highlights, remove shadows slightly, add some contrast and sharpen.
Depending on the style of the room you’re photographing, I also like to desaturate the image a bit sometimes too. This isn’t an extensive list of everything you can be doing to the image to get the best out of it, but these are the basic starting steps that you can play around with.
So there you have it - five simple tips to elevate your Instagram game and make your house look even better than before. Make sure you visit Elyse's website for more inspirational photography www.elysekennedy.com or follow her on Instagram @elysekennedy
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