Anatomy of Hotel and
Resort Photography: A Guide. Episode 9
Episode 9: Notes on Photographing Furniture
My friend Clint Abbott, a master
woodworker and budding designer made a unique long table for his sister. He asked me to photograph it. The problem was that its heavy and takes 3
people to move it around. I took the
challenge. The first thing I thought was
to shoot the piece in a living environment. However, once we set it up the
table didn’t stand out. We decided to photograph it by itself instead. That way you could concentrate on the table
instead of it’s environment.
We shot on a white background
using tungsten Fresnel lights (Arri). I
had to convert the tungsten lights(3200 degrees kelvin) to daylight(5600
degrees kelvin) by using Rosco converter gels – Full CTB - Colour Temperature Blue. The blue gels takes the 3200 degree output of
the light fixture and converts it to 5600 degrees daylight. I had to do this since we were shooting in a
live location and had no control of the daylight coming in from the windows. If I hadn’t converted my lights to match the
interior conditions and shot tungsten(again 3200) there would have been parts
of the table that would have had some blue colour, (from the daylight coming in
from the windows) and that’s not good.
Also, the really important part of this was to see the detail in the
design as well as the wood grain and texture. I didn’t want any weird colour to
be affecting these.
We decided on three angles; left
at 45 degrees, centre, and then right at
45 degrees. These three angles really
showed off the piece.
One major problem we encountered
was that since the table was so long, you really didn’t get a sense of
scale. So, we introduced some tasteful
props to give it scale. These included
an orchid in a white pot and some fruits in interesting bowls.
I also took some detail shots to
show off Clint’s creativity and workmanship.
I shot with my Nikon D3x and the
full 24megapixels and balanced the camera to daylight. The D3x sat on my trusty
and heavy old Gitzo tripod. Since the f stop was 14, the shutter speed was 2
seconds, I needed a really heavy tripod so the camera wouldn’t shake. In these
cases, I also use the “mirror up” function of the camera and a cable release.
When I depress the cable release once, the camera’s mirror opens and locks,
then I depress the cable release again and the lens iris opens and the shot is
taken. This further prevents vibration
from affecting the image.
Once back in my studio, I input
the images into photoshop and away I went.
I really love the D3x and the Nikon lens. The image was razor sharp and wood grain just
popped. I did what’s called a “close cut”
and cut the image out of it’s existing environment. I then created a new image, filled it with
white and copied the shot into that.
What I found was that even though
it was a nice shot, the table looked as if it was floating in air. I then made
a gradient from dark grey at the bottom to white at the top and copied the
table image into that. It looked better,
but still no joy. What worked eventually
was to create a shadow under the table so that it looked as if it was sitting
on the floor instead of floating in mid-air. So when you look at the shot you
look at the table in isolation which is what we wanted in the first place.
Clint can now take these images
and market himself.
When I’m photographing interiors
for hotels and resorts, I have to many times rebuild furniture( in photoshop of
course) to fix scratches, dents, marks, colour fade, etc. I always like to make
sure you can see the detail in the furniture.