3 reasons why bedrooms are actually tough to photograph

Yes, you might wonder, what is so special about bedrooms and how hard can it be? Here are 3 reasons why bedrooms are actually tough to photograph

1. Bedrooms are often quite small, at least in Europe

When shooting interior architecture you are constantly running into the problem that not everything fits in your frame. Mostly you tend to grab your ultra-wide-angle-lens and there you go. There is one major downside. Everything at the edges will be massively distorted. Foreground object are oversized compared to the stuff in the background.

Any solution?

Depends on the client. Realtors are mainly happy with the wide angle shot, so I wouldn’t worry too much. For a high paying client or your own portfolio, I would either crop the image at the edges a bit like in this example or stitch two images together to get a panoramic image. Just for reference, 90% of the time I take images with my 24mm tilt-shift lens instead of the 17mm tilt-shift on my full-frame camera.

2. Bedsheets are often crumpled

That’s a big one! In 9 out of 10 cases the bedsheets are always crumpled. I know it is a bummer and I don’t like it either but you have to rearrange and straighten the sheet before you start shooting. Here is a good tip: Use some clamps to straighten it as much as possible!

Get everything as good as it gets in camera

I can’t stress this enough. In this picture I didn’t arrange the bed sheet and it was a major mistake. On set mistakes happen, especially when you have a tight time schedule. I cleaned the room as much as possible and tried to straighten the sheet. I didn’t have any clamps, so I thought I just fix it in post. I can tell you, next time I would rather iron the bed sheet, instead of spending hours in Photoshop to rescue the shot. Seriously the photo was almost unusable.

Get rid of the last wrinkles with the frequency separation technique

I get in detail about that in another blog post. It is a method mainly portrait photographers used so far. It is actually very useful in any type of photography, as long as you know it’s capabilities. It is such a relief to get rid of wrinkles in bed sheets or curtains. You can use it even to clone out stuff, but in my opinion it can quickly look fake in case you are not an expert using it. Unfortunately, I’m not so, I’m using it only for certain purposes.

3. Maintain the privacy

Both the bedroom and the bathroom are very private areas. You should always be a bit more delicate when taking pictures in these rooms. Always ask the owner, the landlord or the realtor before you move anything and which stuff can be in the picture in which stuff can’t. Think about private photos, paintings, jewellery and any other personal stuff that doesn’t belong in the photo or shouldn’t be moved by the photographer. Imagine something breaks or gets missing.

OK, you should have an insurance anyway but you don’t want to be in the situation that somebody thinks you stole or broke anything. It is neither your home nor your stuff, so stay professional and be very delicate. Every owner is different and you should always respect their privacy and avoid awkward situations. Your reputation is the highest references you can have as a professional photographer, so keep it good!

– Dominik –