Phottix Pro Team member Robert Harrington of Robert Harrington Studios recently talked us through how he gave this room the wow factor. In 2008 the Real Estate market stalled, or completely crashed in some parts of the world, but with global signs of a refueling in the property market the role of a photographer in selling houses is more important than ever, and should not be under-estimated.
Shooting outdoors can have an element of surprise, especially when working in temperamental climates. Indoors however its warm,dry and there is nearly complete control and predictability of the lightning set-up. The only limitations being the boundaries of the room and possibly property’s overbearing owner.
In a kitchen, for instance, framing choices are quite constricted creating a sense of life, style or simplicity often requires a more complicated lightning set-up. Interiors like the kitchen can have more surfaces and objects to bounce or diffuse light onto, as well as lacking a central focus point. Harrington took a few minutes to explain to us how he used Phottix’s Odin to help create these kitchen shots.
Ok, real estate can be easy or difficult. The most difficult room is usually the kitchen as so much is going on, especially in big fancy houses like this one.Here, I set a key light just to camera left to add light to the front of the image. The kitchen is galley style, so it is long and narrow.The second light is in a small butler alcove to the right. You can see how the center part of the image is illuminated here. I was lucky with that little room as it provided a spot to put a light.The third light is a the end of the island and on the floor in front of the stove. This added light to the end of the room where it was the darkest.I set my WB to about 4300-4500 to balance daylight from the windows with the warm light of the interior. I use 1/2 CTO gels on flashes to bring my speed lights to about 4500 WB. I want the daylight to register but not be too blue. I also want the warm light to register as this is how it looks to the eye. I took a custom WB, but it was too neutral at around 3200 K for the warm interior light.I used the Odin here, which worked perfectly, to control the output of my flashes in TTL. My Key was -1, alcove -2, floor by stove -2. This is where digital really pays off as I can see what is on my screen and adjust from there. But you really need to pay strict attention to the small screen.These are adjusted for contrast, saturation, and exposure in Capture One Pro 7. WB is exactly as it was shot.
