Scout Your House Part 1

Yup.  The Loo.  Water Closet.  Toilet.

Attributes:  This room has one small window facing South, but it gets a reasonable amount of light at certain times of the day.  The white hexagon tile and bead board wainscoting make a nice neutral backdrop with some texture.  Above the wainscoting is painted a raisin color, sort of brownish deep red.

Equipment: In the pulled back shot, you can see the edge of a reflector in the bottom left corner.  I got this for about $10 on Amazon.  It’s one of the best $10 I’ve spent in my photographic journey.  I propped it here against the corner to help reflect some of the light back onto the subject.  This kit has a silver and gold reflector and I think I was using the gold to warm up the coolness of the available winter light.

Prep: I pulled the towels off the towel bar, moved the bath rugs, and pulled the shower curtain open.  I could have moved the kid’s body soap, but I was planning to crop the tub out of the shot so that didn’t matter.

The Stairway Landing:

This is part of the same photo shoot for the Emerald Challenge for Sew-vivor last year.  You’ll begin to see a bit of a trend with this post.  I wanted another location besides the bathroom, so I tried the staircase landing and was able to get a few good shots here.

Attributes:  Beige plaster walls and an East-facing window give this area nice lighting.  The house next door is yellow which helps to give it a warmer light.

Equipment: There wasn’t a good spot to use the reflector, so I didn’t use it for this shot.  Looking back on this now, I could have used the filter that is part of this kit to diffuse the light and keep the right side (our left) of Arden’s face from getting washed out.  I did a fair bit of playing with exposure in editing to get the amount of evenness you see in the final picture.

Prep:  I opened the shades on the window.  I was shooting from the stairs, so I made sure to be careful not to step backwards.

The Front Door:

I know this isn’t technically inside our home, but I wanted to include it here.  I’ve seen many people use a location just inside their front door with the door open to get shots, but it’s dark as a dungeon just inside that door.

Attributes:  I like shooting in front of our Forest green, peeling, chippy door because it has character and nice texture.  A door represents home in many ways, and while I don’t like to operate our front door – it sticks like the dickens and I have to wrestle with it every time, it’s OUR door.  Know what I mean?  I’ll be happy we have many shots in front of our door when it’s no longer ours to claim.  The front door faces North.

Equipment:  No equipment used.

Prep: I suppose I should have swept the porch, but I cropped out the mat and concrete.  The story behind this shot is that Hadley was inside and was about 20 months old when these were taken.  She had this thing with closing doors and then knocking on the door.  Whether you were in the room with her or outside, didn’t matter.  Hadley was inside knocking on the door the whole time, so Arden would open it up and say “hello”!  Since I wanted shots of the back of the dress anyways, it worked out remarkably well.

I have a few more spots in our home that I use, so I’m planning to revisit and share those in future posts.  I hope this helps you to walk around your home and look at it with new eyes to see the potential.  Maybe you need to move some furniture – one of my favorite spots is right where Hadley’s crib is, so we move it out of the way.  A sheet doesn’t have to be your only choice!