Although I specialise in commercial property photography, from time to time clients require shots of residential properties and I have photographed numerous residential properties, both houses and flats.
The technical aspects of the photography remain the same as for commercial properties and the shot composition follows the same principles, but the smaller spaces and control over the rooms allow for more opportunitues to reorganise the room to better suit the photograph.
Commercial spaces generally have customers or employees moving around and are large spaces – too big and too busy for a photographer to control the lighting. In a home, flash photography can be used to light the spaces, windows can be blocked with curtains or other fabrics to screen them off. Furniture can even be re-arranged to improve the composition.
As with commercial properties there is also the option of using natural light or HDR photography.
The composition of the images needs to help the viewer understand the layout, to show the windows and doors and to help people understand the size of each space. The height of the camera is crucial because it needs to be high enough to show the materials and colours of counter-tops, tables and sinks without being so high that it seems to look down too much on seating and television areas.
