words and photos by: Scot Zimmerman
This week I have a captive audience. The American Society of interior Designers (ASID) holds its Western Conference at Deer Valley on Friday. I have the privilege of speaking to them an hour before dinner. To keep their minds off what’s on the menu, I am attempting make the work of architectural photography sound intriguing.
I’m approaching my talk from the perspective that interior designers are consumers of photography, and they have choices. I attempt to make some of these choices more informed.
For example, there is the choice between day or evening shots. Ten to twenty years ago, there was a preference for evening shots. In those days, we shot in film. Film doesn’t deal well with extremes in light. However, with digital and by making multiple exposures and layering them, one can see details in the interior with day shots. Also, trends affect residential magazine photography, and many magazines now decline to run evening shots. However, evening and day shots differ in how they draw one’s eye to different elements like the architectural forms and the lighting design. It remains a good choice and depends on what the client wants to highlight.
Another consideration for designers is that clients often complete their homes in stages or layers of design. While clients may find and add an art piece down the road, at the time of the photos we are looking at a blank wall. There are different techniques for adding art, and one is to hold a piece in place and eliminate the people from the shot, resulting in no damage to the wall.
Color versus black and white is another choice some of my clients make. The same view makes one notice very different factors once color is removed: shapes and forms are much more evident, as are textures.
As you can see, it will be an extremely exciting presentation. I will let you know if anyone survives it without nodding off.