Office Furniture ???

Kawi_T · Jan 9, 2008

I work in the area of somewhat high end office furniture. Tomorrow morning I have to go to a local bank and build 6 offices. When I'm done my bossman wants me to take pics of our work. I've tried taking some pics in our showroom but I can't really reproduce how good the furniture looks in real life. Any advice on taking good pics of office furniture? Its boring sounding but I'm sure a lot of people face this kind of thing. How do you make pics of something like furniture look good. Here are a couple from our showroom.

Thanks,
T

Kawi_T · Jan 9, 2008

Actually, now that I take a closer look at these, I don't think they look half bad. If I can do this good tomorrow I think they will be good enough. They are just for our personal use, they certainly wont go in any of our literature and doubtfully will make it to our website.

Sideburns · Jan 9, 2008

if it's just for your own use...then leave it. Otherwise, I think the only way would be external lighting to help separate the furniture from the other stuff. Or a backdrop.

bratkinson · May 14, 2013

Not being a real estate photographer or anything else, for that matter, I've managed to glean a few things on this website from real estate photographers.

The first thing is lighting. The goal is to reduce shadows as much as possible and to illuminate the darker corners and crevices of a room. That typically means multiple lights and sometimes a 'hidden' assistant with a light as well. Combining multiple shots at different exposures in post is another means of accomplishing this as well.

Another issue is to 'square up' everything. When shooting in cramped spaces, wide angle lenses are a necessity. But they come at the cost of converging/diverging parallel lines such as wall corners, etc. Some post processing software has the capability to do these corrections, but aren't perfect. A tilt-shift lens would solve this problem, but learning how to use them effectively takes time.

Lastly, I'd address the reflections and glare in the pictures using a circular polarizer (CPL) filter.

Although you indicated the pictures are for in house use only, don't be surprised if your boss approaches you for some catalog type shots, and perhaps even post-installation shots at customers for publication. Product photography is a specialized area and has many tricks of the trade. You may want to spend a few hours using the 'search' function on this web site and others looking for real estate and/or product photography tips.