In researching architectural and interior design firms to market my services to, I was surprised to discover the vast majority don’t have professional images representing their work.
In fact, only a small percentage found value in hiring a professional architectural & interior photographer to shoot their projects.
Most appear to use photos taken with a phone, failing to see the mistakes they’ve made, but use those images anyway to represent their work.
They probably thought, “Well, I can take a decent picture. Why should I pay someone to do something I can do myself? It looks decent enough.”
Unless you’ve studied architectural and interior photography, have mastered the editing process with both Lightroom and Photoshop, have acquired the specialized cameras and lenses needed for the genre, and learned how to use all that to create artistic and impactful images, then I would have to say you’ve fallen short of fully understanding what a professional architectural & interior photographer actually does.
But you know what?
It’s not your fault.
That’s right, because how could you know all the intricacies of an art form you haven’t studied?
The problem is, everyone has a camera on their phone and everyone can take a picture, so many believe they’re doing the same thing that a professional photographer does… except the pro just has a better camera.
If this is your thinking then you’re missing a huge part of the equation and the result is mistakes in your photos you’re probably not even aware of.
So, this article exposes three hidden mistakes architects and interior designers make when they take their own photos.
1. Your Leaning Tower Of Pisa
The first hidden mistake I see is slanting verticals.
That’s when the vertical lines of your building are leaning inward, like the bow of a ship. It makes the structure you’re photographing look like it’s falling backwards.
I don’t think that’s the impression you want to give prospective clients, yet, I see these “leaning Towers of Pisa” all the time.
The number one rule in architectural and interiors photography is to have your vertical lines vertical and your horizontal lines perfectly level.
And there are several ways to achieve that both in-camera and in post, but there’s no need to get into that here.
The point is, if you’re an architect and you post images of your work that appear to be leaning or falling down, that’s not the best impression to leave visitors with who come to your website.
It can make your work look amateurish (when in fact, it’s not), giving people the wrong impression.
2. We All Live In A Yellow Submarine
The second hidden mistake I see with interior photography is that the image is saturated with the wrong color temperature.
You see, light has a color that ranges basically from blue to yellow depending on whether you’re inside or outside, as well as, the kind of light bulbs being used to illuminate the area.
Many times I see a strong yellow hue dominating an interior space because the photographer has not compensated for the incandescent bulbs. The yellow drowns out all other colors and makes wood look orange.
Interior designers spend a lot of time choosing the perfect color palette and to have all that wiped out by a foreign color that dominates the image is a travesty.
In fact, getting accurate colors is one of the hardest things to achieve in photography but especially important when working with interior designers.
3. Get Me In The Mood, Baby!
The third hidden mistake I see with architects and interior designers taking their own pictures is that they only shoot what something looks like, not what it feels like.
In other words, there’s no mood to the image.
Mood is created a number of ways but in short, it’s done with controlling the light, both adding to it and taking it away.
It also requires multiple exposures that are layered together to create one composite image.
This is advanced stuff for sure and something your typical architect or interior designer is not capable of, let alone, even aware of.
Conclusion
So, those are three hidden mistakes I see architects and interior designers make when they take their own photos.
The thing is, you’ll never know the number of potential clients you lost because the images on your website failed to impress them, so they moved on.
If the photos on your website look amateurish, that reflects back onto you. If they look professional, that also reflects back onto you.
The question is… how do you want people to see you?
Thanks for your time!
Charles Mitri
Charles Mitri is an interior design, hotel, and architectural photographer based in Yorktown, VA.
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