Our blog, D Brief, shares succint expert advice, trends, tips, and ideas for marketing communications tactics—focusing on print, Web, social media, and promotional products—from a corporate visual identity perspective. We welcome your thoughts so we can learn from each other.
Top 15 Indoor Photography Tips for “Do-It-Yourself” Clients
At D Media, we love providing clients with turnkey tactical solutions. Need a brochure? We will not only design and print it, but also provide the copywriting and photography. However, we do understand that clients may need to do one or more of the tasks themselves. Whether meeting budget constraints or taking advantage of in-house resources, we get it.
That leads us to this next post. With the increasing affordability and ease of digital cameras, clients are feeling more comfortable handling their own photography. But equipment alone doesn’t yield perfect results. Professional photographers have skills and experience. While we can’t transfer all those talents and expertise in a blog post, we can provide some helpful tips.
Top 15 Indoor Photography Tips for “Do-It-Yourself” Clients
1) Cameras – Set up two different cameras for each shot. Why? Equipment can fail halfway through—it’s happened to others and it can happen to you. With two cameras, you’ll not only have a backup, but also may prefer how the images turn out from one camera over the other.
2) Use a tripod – Many photographers recommend this, to avoid possible shaky and fuzzy shots. A tripod also helps consistency with the same angle and perspective on every shot.
3) Quality – Set the camera to the highest resolution and largest size image. Sounds simplistic but we’ve had clients forget to check this setting, yielding photos that are too small or too low-res. Even if your photo shoot intent is for online or email marketing, you never know when you may need something high-res for a printed piece. You can always convert images to a lower resolution or size, but you can’t go the other way without losing quality.
4) Quantity – Although you only need a few quality shots for each subject, the more you shoot, the more you’ll have to choose from. It’s much easier to delete extra images than go back and retake because shots didn’t turn out as expected.
5) Careful with light – Many cameras are designed for handheld use outdoors. As soon as you take them indoors you discover that it is typically much darker inside than outdoors. Many architects will tell you that you need light from two sides of a room in order to be comfortable in that room. If there is a window on only one wall, the light inside the room will have too much contrast. When a room has a well-designed artificial lighting system, a commercial photographer will often use the existing lights and fixtures to balance the natural light. Be aware that sunlight from windows is much more powerful than typical incandescent bulbs. The best position for indoor lighting is typically to shoot with the light source behind the photographer, not behind the subject.
6) Away from the wall – Subjects right up next to a solid wall often create a “flatter” look than those a foot or more in front of it. If your wall is interesting and part of the environment, this might not be the case. But for portraits where the background is not the focal point, a flat, solid wall directly behind can often create harsher shadows by the subject. Ask the subject to step forward to create depth.
7) Get in close – Close-ups typically yield better resolution, less grainy/fuzzy photos than subjects shot too far away. This is a successful technique to use for photos that will appear in the final piece inside frames or boxes. However for cutouts—when the subject ends up being “cut out” of the background—the entire subject must be visible; avoid getting so close that a part of the subject is cut off on the head or at the arms/shoulders.
8) Go tight with multiple subjects – If more than one person in a shot posing together be sure to reduce the “dead space” by asking your subjects to move closer together. Tighter shots tend to be more successful than wide shots where the viewer’s eyes must dart side to side to see both subjects.
9) Engaging interiors – Many clients want to show off the inside of their building, impressive offices, or high-tech equipment. Although the facility may be spectacular and the equipment impressive, bare rooms and machines leave the viewer with a cold, empty feeling. Successful photos are those that show people relating to what the architects have built or what the equipment can do. For indoor shots, we recommend showing staff happily using the equipment and patients enjoying the beautiful facility.
10) Keep distracting objects out – Step back and look at the image as a whole. Pictures on the wall, someone’s backside in the background, sometimes even windows or light fixtures distract from the main focus of the image.
11) “Hey You” action shots – Many clients want action shots of their staff and customers doing a certain activity. Action shots are tricky because the timing has to be exactly right to avoid the talking person with his/her mouth open in a strange way, or gesticulating hands covering up someone’s face for example. We recommend that in addition to the natural action shot, also “freeze” the action for a posed shot. This is sometimes called a “Hey You” shot. The photographer asks everyone in the action to stop in place, freeze, and look/smile at the camera while still doing that action.
12) Stand on a stool or sit on the ground – We often recommend that clients shoot consistently from slightly above the subject (especially for portraits) OR slightly below for tall structures. These create more interesting perspectives. Either way, do a few test shots, view them to decide what looks best, and then be consistent.
13) Consistency in height – If you don’t have a tripod or don’t want to use one, at least use the same person or person(s) at the same height taking the photos that you want to match up consistently. When would you need consistent height images? A series of staff headshots, medical equipment in different exam rooms, furniture or product shots, are just a few instances.
14) Be aware of what is behind your subject – A solid background is better than a complex one. Even if the subject will eventually be cutout, photos with varied patterns behind the subject are more challenging and time-consuming for image-editing than simple, solid backgrounds.
15) If you forget the above tips, at least remember this last one: Simplicity is visually stronger than complexity.
Tried handling your own photography and are still not happy with the end results? Photography isn’t for everyone. Remember, D Media is only a phone call, social media message, or email away. We provide everything from custom photo shoots, stock photo research, creating shot lists, onsite consulting, or even just creative direction for your own photography resource.
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