Picture it inside

By Adrian Toon, director of a2n.

We have talked about how we photograph installations from the outside, but what if you want to photograph your installation from the inside?

Unless the project contains a lot of glazing, such as a conservatory, you will find that light levels internally are lower than outside, and as soon as you point the camera at your product you will get a ‘backlight’ condition which will darken your product and lose all of its detail.

Two solutions can work well: shoot at dusk, use internal room lighting and wait for light levels outside reach those of the internal illumination; or use a ‘slave flash’ gun – one or more – to increase light levels internally during the day.

The flash on your camera or smartphone should trigger the slave flash and enable a more powerful ‘fill-in’ flash. The unit or units you use will need to be placed out of the picture you are taking or behind furniture so they cannot be seen. Some mini tripods work well to set the up the slave flashes.

With a little experimentation, as you will need to adjust your flash to offer the right level of light for your subject, you will find your slave flash a handy companion to your camera of choice.