photographiyng conference halls and hotel rooms

[adison]

Hi, I was recently faced with a dillema, when I was asked to take few pictures with conference halls and rooms for a hotel. The manager showed me the locations ho have an ideea about, and at a moment, he ask me if I can come with light sources in order to take pictures to these rooms and conference halls. I explain him that I take pictures with these locations with the ambient light, using a tripod, and I consider this is the best method for photographiyng large and small rooms. I want to ask you if am I right or if I am wrong. You are photographers with some experience in this field and can give me an advice: should I come with aditional light in these locations or should I go the simple way, taking pictures in the existing light. I ask that becouse seems very complicated to me to set the lights around the room, obtaining an equal dispersion of light around the room, and avoiding to catch the statives and umbrellas in the picture. Thank you fora answers.

adison.

[Tim Curry]

If you take the job, you do what the person paying for it requires. Rent the lights and charge accordingly.

[Ralph Barker]

I agree with Tim - do what will give the client what he/she wants. If that entails renting lights, make sure the client approves the additional expense in advance of doing the job.

Lighting interiors is not a simple task, however. It's a real art. In most cases, the objective is to enhance the ambiance created by the existing lighting, so a prospective guest will get an accurate, but inticing, impression of the hotel ammenities. If the existing lighting has been well designed - by an interior designer, for example - supplementing the existing light becomes even more delicate, so as not to destroy what the designer created.

[Donal Taylor]

"If you take the job, you do what the person paying for it requires. Rent the lights and charge accordingly."

not the best of advice. if they come to you, they come for your skills as a photographer. they, presumably, know dick about lighting, film and how to photograph spaces and interiors or they would be doing it themselves?

it's you job (if you know well enough what you are doing - or are a good bluffer if you don't...) to advise them on the best way to do this to get the results they want for the price they are willing to pay.

It may well be that using the existing light - perhaps only slightly suplemented - is the best way to go.

it may be that lighting the whole thing is best for both the space and the client - but check they are willing to pay the rental cost, possibly cost of an asistant and the (possibly significant) extra time it is going to cost to set all of that up.

my personal choice, when at all possible, is portra or nps and little or no supplemental lighting. In some ways it's simpler. It's also generally more natural looking. Take a look at the work of Robert Polidori - he is a master of this. Many, even well known, architectural photogorpahers tend to over light a space and lose a sense of how it really looks.

[Leonard Evens]

Look at Photographing Buildings Inside and Out by Normal McGrath. You will see that arranging the lighting is crucial. I've only experimented with such photography in my home, but normally the lighting is not conducive to accurate portrayals.

[ramin]

HI: Any link to the works of Robert Polidori or Normal McGrath where we could see some axamples of thier work?

thnx

[tim atherton]

http://www.billcharles.com/polidori/robertpolidori_1.htm - several pages - mostly done in 4x5 colour neg existing light as I understand it. (he had a Mall pic in a recent Yew Yorker as well)

http://www.theglobalist.com/photo/Chernobyl/Polidori.shtml

http://www.theglobalist.com/photo/havana/polidori.shtml

Also try - Candida Hofer

http://www.renabranstengallery.com/hofer.html

and lynne cohen

http://www.gallery.ca/exhibitions/exhibitions/falk_cohen/english/cohen/frame_e.html

These are photogorpahers who seem to have taken the "Architectural Review" style, added something to it and used it for their own ends. A lot of architectural photogorpahy while usually technically excellent can be either rather dull or predicatable. Thankfully many of the architecture and design magazines and architects offices are starting to use work which does something more than provide a techincally good record of the building and space. (of course many building owners/architects are also quite happy with that approach standard approach)

[Martin Patek-Strutsky]

How the heck gets Polidori this wonderful soft but still glowing colors? Should I maybe move from slide to negative film? Or is it his mastery in post processing?

[Henry Ambrose]

I second what Donal wrote. Color negative film and very carefully applied additional lighting or none as the scene requires. More importantly I second that you should be the photography expert and not the client. The end result must please the client but how you get there is your business - literally. Just be sure you can produce an end product like what they have in mind. If their version of "proper architectural photography" is odd perspective, colored gels and lots of lights then you may dissappoint them with a natural look shot on neg film. It might help a lot if they can show you how they think the final photograph should look and for you to show them how you think it should look. Tim's links might help with that.

[neil poulsen]

I photographed a church interior using strobes. Three strobe heads (1200 ws each) were set up to bounce off a white wall on one side of the church, the side from which the photograph was taken. We also had some additional light from stained glass windows in the same wall.

This setup provided sufficient light to obtain a well exposed transparency.