How to Capture Your Home in its Best Light
Ten practical and creative suggestions to help you photograph the life and beauty of your home
So much living happens in a home that we can easily forget its beauty and character outside of daily machinations. The house is living too: personality, history and relationships are encoded in the personal world that we’ve created. In photographing our home, we’re invited to view the familiar with fresh eyes and capture the dynamics of our environment. We can observe colour and texture, light and shadow, the flow of spaces, and the way that people move, feel and express themselves in them to capture meaningful and lasting impressions.
Whatever camera you’re using, you can take beautiful and compelling images that reflect the spirit and nature of your home and life. Here are 10 tips to help you take your photos to the next level:
Whatever camera you’re using, you can take beautiful and compelling images that reflect the spirit and nature of your home and life. Here are 10 tips to help you take your photos to the next level:
2. Experiment with composition
Take an open approach. Experiment with wider shots and closer shots. Look from a different angle. Consider visual harmonies and curiosities in colour, lines and texture. Can you vary focus to bring attention to different aspects? Depending on your objectives, you may settle on a consistent look and tone, or choose to vary this.
Take an open approach. Experiment with wider shots and closer shots. Look from a different angle. Consider visual harmonies and curiosities in colour, lines and texture. Can you vary focus to bring attention to different aspects? Depending on your objectives, you may settle on a consistent look and tone, or choose to vary this.
3. Move!
Don’t be afraid to move around the space and subject to see things differently – crouch, lean, perch, lie down, stand closer and further away. Think big, small and sideways.
Don’t be afraid to move around the space and subject to see things differently – crouch, lean, perch, lie down, stand closer and further away. Think big, small and sideways.
4. Look ‘through’ to a room and see around it
For a more documentary feel, try looking from outside the space you’re photographing – for instance, from a hallway, or through a window. This can yield interesting results, creating frames-within-frames and greater dimensionality.
For a more documentary feel, try looking from outside the space you’re photographing – for instance, from a hallway, or through a window. This can yield interesting results, creating frames-within-frames and greater dimensionality.
5. Don’t be a slave to symmetry
The mind naturally prefers symmetrical images where the elements are even and in balance. However, consciously working against symmetry or offsetting it, particularly in medium or closer shots, can be interesting and bring more of your way of seeing to the home and pictures.
The mind naturally prefers symmetrical images where the elements are even and in balance. However, consciously working against symmetry or offsetting it, particularly in medium or closer shots, can be interesting and bring more of your way of seeing to the home and pictures.
6. Think about image resolution
Consider what you would like the images to do. Do you want to print them? Frame or publish? Are they only for electronic and social media? The higher the resolution in the first place, the more options you will have for better image quality across a variety of media.
Consider what you would like the images to do. Do you want to print them? Frame or publish? Are they only for electronic and social media? The higher the resolution in the first place, the more options you will have for better image quality across a variety of media.
7. Environment + people
What surrounds a subject in a photograph can express a lot about them; it is a kind of dialogue. Think about how the immediate environment or location relates to the person you’re photographing and what kind of background and detail is most meaningful (or entertaining).
What surrounds a subject in a photograph can express a lot about them; it is a kind of dialogue. Think about how the immediate environment or location relates to the person you’re photographing and what kind of background and detail is most meaningful (or entertaining).
8. Setting up portraits
One of the lovely aspects about photographing people in their own home is the familiarity they feel in their surroundings. Nevertheless, not everyone is comfortable with a camera fixed on them. Encouraging your subjects to talk about something of interest (camera in hand) can help minimise their self-consciousness in the case of a more posed portrait. Often the more natural, personal moments will come when someone’s attention is elsewhere for a moment. Be ready to capture those moments.
One of the lovely aspects about photographing people in their own home is the familiarity they feel in their surroundings. Nevertheless, not everyone is comfortable with a camera fixed on them. Encouraging your subjects to talk about something of interest (camera in hand) can help minimise their self-consciousness in the case of a more posed portrait. Often the more natural, personal moments will come when someone’s attention is elsewhere for a moment. Be ready to capture those moments.
9. Observe things as they happen
Photographing people engaged in activities, movement or interactions can produce the most candid and telling portraits and stories. Whether working, playing, cooking or socialising, the stuff of daily life is rich and revealing. For greater depth and complexity, you can vary your perspectives so that you tell more of a story with a mix of wider establishing shots, observational portraits, and closer shots and ‘cutaways’ of particular details; a glass in the hand, vegetables being chopped, the fire burning brightly.
Photographing people engaged in activities, movement or interactions can produce the most candid and telling portraits and stories. Whether working, playing, cooking or socialising, the stuff of daily life is rich and revealing. For greater depth and complexity, you can vary your perspectives so that you tell more of a story with a mix of wider establishing shots, observational portraits, and closer shots and ‘cutaways’ of particular details; a glass in the hand, vegetables being chopped, the fire burning brightly.
10. Remember the pets
If you have them you will know: animals are as much a part of the life in a home as people. It’s not easy to ‘direct’ pets as such but you have a personal relationship with them, the benefit of their trust, and you know their routines and favourite places. There are many natural scenes between pets and people in the course of every day. And if your dog or cat (or pig or ferret) wanders unexpectedly through the frame, go with it. They are a part of it all.
YOUR SAY
How do you capture life’s precious moments at your house? Tell us about it in the Comments.
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If you have them you will know: animals are as much a part of the life in a home as people. It’s not easy to ‘direct’ pets as such but you have a personal relationship with them, the benefit of their trust, and you know their routines and favourite places. There are many natural scenes between pets and people in the course of every day. And if your dog or cat (or pig or ferret) wanders unexpectedly through the frame, go with it. They are a part of it all.
YOUR SAY
How do you capture life’s precious moments at your house? Tell us about it in the Comments.
MORE
Sell Your House in a Flash: Top Home Styling Tips for Photo Shoots
How to Organise Your Photos in a Flash
A Dozen Novel Ways To Display Your Favourite Photos
Observe how the light changes in different rooms over the day and into the night. Highlights draw the eye and shadows can reveal depth and dimension, but if either is too dominant, you might be missing detail that’s desirable. Adjust the blinds or curtains; look at the effect of lights on and off. Experiment with the camera’s settings to find an exposure and look that feels good for you. Try mixed light sources – cool/warm, sunlight/tungsten, or sunlight/flash. So much is possible and there is no right or wrong.