Photography for Interior Designers

I will be giving a seminar on Photography for Interior Designers on Thursday Nov. 12 from 5:30 PM to 8:40 PM Hosted by Hunter Douglas 1870 Milmont Dr., Milpitas CA, 95035.

This seminar is a CEU for ASID Members and provides 0.2 Credit Hours.

I will be discussing subjects such as compositional guideline to make your images better, Photographing Space: Techniques to help you showcase your talent, Staging and Styling for dramatic effect and New Technology: High Dynamic Range Imaging.

Attendance is limited to 85 people and costs $45.00 for members of ASID and $55.00 for non-members but you have to RSVP to the ASID CA Peninsula Chapter office with a check or card payment by Nov. 6

I have worked hard to make this a truly education experience for interior designers with any level of experience. This will not just be a show of pretty pictures. I will be explaining tricks and techniques that I have learned throughout my career and  employ to great effect on every photograph I create.

Here’s a copy of the promo announcement. I hope to see you there.

Dean

This two-hour course will benefit interior designers of all experience
levels. The guidelines and techniques discussed will be beneficial
when applied to either a professional photo shoot or when designers
photograph a project themselves.

Attendees will learn of compositional guidelines allowing them to
better direct and control the outcome of their photo shoots, the
logistics and principles of styling for an interior design photo shoot
will be discussed and designers will be instructed in the evaluation
and application of new photographic techniques helping them make
informed decisions and gain greater control over their photo shoots.

Bay Area photographer Dean Birinyi creates beautiful architectural
photographs that capture the emotional character of his clients’
work and communicates their talents and design concepts.  With
more than twenty years of experience photographing architecture
and interior design, Dean listens to his clients to integrate the solutions
for many different but equally important needs into any image. Dean’s
talent for storytelling consistently helps his clients win design competitions.

Registration is for Security not to get you to “Join My Club”

I want to assure everyone that the purpose of requiring registration for both the blog comments and gallery is simply one of security.

I did not require registration for the first couple of weeks and then I was “discovered” by at least one spam-bot. I really had no choice but to require registration, it was either that or shut down the blog and I don’t give up that easily.

But please rest assured that your e-mail address will not be visible to anyone on the blog and I’m an architectural photographer in the heart of the San Francisco Bay technology corridor I don’t do spam.  I do send out once monthly notices to all of my client’s about the photograph of the month but other than that any e-mails I send are strictly related to your needs and the projects you ask me to help you with.

As far as the registration at the gallery is concerned that is a different matter entirely. Proofs must remain confidential until after you have used them because my clients have first usage rights to the images I create for them. This is an industry standard “Best practice” and because of that I must password protect the proof galleries until after you take delivery of the files and use them.

By registering I can assign you to view galleries by group rather than by project, in example if your firm is ABC Design I can allow you to see all projects that i shoot for abc design and you only have to log in once. However, if I password protect each gallery individually you will have to enter your password each time you view another project. And I will have to expend considerable time and energy attempting to keep track of all the passwords manually.

I hope you understand that the registration procedures are intended to provide an acceptable level of professional security with a minimum amount of inconvenience. My goal for these upgrades is to help my clients by improving the customer service I give them. I will never send you unsolicited e-mails, or allow anyone else to gain access to the confidential, information you entrust to me.

Composition – Alternative Framing Conventions

You might be thinking that this is going to be another discussion advocating  use of the “Rule of Thirds” when composing your images. I plan to discuss alternative compositional rules as well as the rule of thirds.

I want to be certain we all understand the Rule of Thirds and why compositional rules are used, but only briefly because there are much better places to learn the basics of composition.
There are two parts to the rule of thirds the first is if you divide your frame into three equal sections horizontally and vertically the result is nine rectangles of equal size and proportion. The “rule” is to place your subject on one of the lines or at the intersection of the lines, this is an “action point.”  It is a location within the frame that people naturally perceive as a point of focus based upon our perceptions of the geometry of the image frame, subjects placed at the action points will be given greater attention by all viewers. The second part of the rule is to use the “thirds” to balance the image either by placing your subject in one or two thirds.

The most basic means of applying this rule using shooting landscapes as an example is to fill the lower third for your foreground the middle third for your background and keep approximately one third of the frame filled with sky. This will give you a “balanced” composition, it might not be the most dynamic photograph ever taken, but it will be balanced.

I am a strong advocate for using compositional rules because I know they are powerful tools that help me create good photographs. I am not suggesting a slavish adherence to these rules; I am advocating that you study these rules and put them into practice when you’re taking pictures. They will help you understand, control and manipulate the concepts of line, movement and balance, which are subjects for a later discussion.

Now that we have a mutual understanding of the application of compositional rules in general we can explore the different rules available to us.

There are five compositional rules that I normally work with: the Rule of Thirds, Golden Section, Golden Spiral, Triangle and Diagonals.

Example of Rule of Thirds Compositional Guide

The Rule of Thirds is well known, easy to work with and generally results in well composed pictures. I use this rule but try to stay away from it when I can because it is so commonly used your images can become hackneyed or static, which might be a good thing depending on the image.

Example of Triangles Compositional Guide

My favorite rule to use is Triangles. I find it easily to visualize on most subjects. And it’s use leads to asymmetrical compositions that have a lot of life. (I am unable to find a source link for this compositional guide I had one back in 2002 when I began to consciously work with the different rules, but it’s gone now.) To construct this guide is quite simple: draw a straight line from one corner of your frame to the diagonally opposed corner, then draw a right angle line from this line to the opposing corner of the image. The elegance of this rule works in direct relation to it’s simplicity, which is why I work with it so often.

Example of Golden Section Compositional Guide

The Golden Section is close relative to the rule of thirds, but because of the asymmetric layout of the grid images composed using this rule can be pereceived as being more powerful. I tend to use this rule when working on single, easily defined subjects.

Example of Spiral Compositional Guide

The Fibonacci Spiral , which is built upon the Golden Section, is a wonderful compositional guideline that will give you very sophisticated compositions, but it is devilishly hard to work with. Trying to build a spiral line in a photographic composition is not easy, unlike a painter we cannot always find a “convenient” branch to close off part of the frame. As you can see I have done the best I can to match the line of the spiral but had to distort it to achieve my goal which was a well composed image not adhearance to the rule.

Example of Diagonal Compositional Guide

Finally we have Diagonals. These, too are related to the Golden Section and have been in use for centuries. My use of them is limited because I don’t see things in that manner.

There you have it, these are the different compositional tools that we have available to us. I know that judicious application and manipulation of these rules are part of why my clients love my photographs, using these rules will help anyone get better pictures.

On Posting Comments

I have been advised to allow comments to be posted without prior registration for two reasons: registered posting is annoying for the person posting and it will complicate my life and consume vast amounts of time for me to have to authorize each registrant.

So, with great trepidation I am going to allow unregistered users to comment, until I am given reason to change this policy.

I trust my clients, colleagues and associates to conduct themselves in a professional manner, it’s the odd surfer than stumbles upon the blog I am worried about. I can always delete offensive posts after the fact. And I will do so at the drop of a hat, after all this is my place of business.