How to Take Magazine Worthy Home Photos
I have been a professional photographer for about 10 years and over that time I have learned some tips and tricks on how to up-level the photos of your home! Once we started this blog back in January of 2019 is when I really started working on my interior photography skills and it is so much fun! You don’t need to be a professional photographer to take magazine worthy images of your home! Here are a few ways to start taking impactful images:
Remove clutter
Removing all unneccesary clutter and mess it vital for creating images that feel clean and inviting. The last thing you want is something to be in the image that feels random and takes the attention away from the space. You can remove clutter by physically moving it out of the space or by looking at it a new perspective by cropping the clutter out. By this I mean you can take the photo from a different angle or even move in closer to get it out of the camera frame.
Use Natural Light Sources
Natural light is your best friend when photographing interiors. Open those shades and turn off all of those interior lights! I personally love the character the light speckles give to the photographs below, but if you’re not a fan - then just be strategic about the time of day you are photographing the space and how the light will be coming in. Additionally to allowing as much light in as possible, make sure are thinking about the angle you are photographing and how the light is affecting it. Usually the best option it to photograph in the direction that is opposite or to the side of where the light source is.
Get Low
Get low, literally means - get low and closer to the ground. When taking photos it feels natural to take it from the vantage point that you see, but getting lower to the ground allows for the space to feel larger and also helps created more straight and level lines in the image.
Incorporate Lifestyle Elements
This is the secret sauce, my friends! Incorporating lifestyle elements is how you make an image go from a photo of your dining room, to a dining room filled with life. This is the easiest way to help people get the feeling of what it would be like to be in that space. Lifestyle elements could be many things, some examples are food or drink, a lit candle, or the my personal favorite, an actual person!
Use Presets
Editing your photos is so important to get the desired wow-factor in your images! But don’t worry — you don’t need to become an expert on how to edit. Luckily professionals have created presets that you can purchase! Presets are “pre-edited filters” that you can apply to your photos in an editing app to get a desired look. Here are some of my favorite preset sets for interior photography:
