Architectural Photo Shoot with Industrious

Industrious is a co-working space provider that offers flexible office spaces, meeting rooms, and shared workspaces for businesses and individuals. The company aims to provide a professional and productive environment for its members, offering amenities such as high-speed internet, printing services, and a welcoming lounge area. Industrious operates in several locations across the United States.

Photographing commercial architecture can be a challenging but rewarding experience. It involves capturing the visual essence of a building’s design, functionality, and surroundings in a way that showcases its features and highlights its intended purpose. The key to a successful commercial architecture photograph is to effectively highlight the design elements of the building and its surrounding environment, as well as to capture the mood and atmosphere of the space. This often requires a combination of technical skills, creative vision, and attention to detail. The photographer may need to use specialized equipment and techniques, such as tripod-mounted cameras, long exposures, and specialized lighting, to capture the building’s unique qualities. Overall, photographing commercial architecture requires a blend of technical proficiency and artistic vision to produce images that are both informative and aesthetically appealing.

Lighting commercial spaces for photography can be a complex process, but here are some common techniques that I prefer to use:

  1. Natural lighting: Using natural light from windows and skylights can be a great way to bring life and atmosphere to a space. I often use reflectors to control the direction and intensity of natural light.
  2. Artificial lighting: Artificial lighting can be used to supplement or replace natural light and control the mood of the image. Strobes, continuous lights, and LED lights are common options.
  3. Ambient lighting: Ambient lighting refers to the existing light in a space that can be used to create a general level of illumination. Photographers and. videographers may use this light to their advantage or supplement it with artificial light.
  4. Rim lighting: Rim lighting is a technique that involves positioning lights around the edges of the subject to create a halo effect and highlight the subject’s form. For architecture, I would light around a couch or any other object I want to promote.
  5. Backlighting: Backlighting involves positioning lights behind the subject to create a rim light and to create a sense of depth and separation from the background.

Each commercial space will have its own unique lighting challenges, so the specific lighting setup will depend on the space, the desired mood, and the my vision. It’s common for photographers to experiment with different lighting setups and use a combination of techniques to achieve the desired result.

I always bracket my shots with a nine stop range so I can edit as necessary in post-production.

Thanks for reading!

– Ben

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bengebo
Commercial and Editorial photographer.