I’m a firm believer that every space has a story to tell. Not every space (or story) is going to be glamorous or elegant; some places may be dated, downright trashy, or even worse, super boring withpe no personality (think of all those beige rooms in early 90s mcmansions…). But I think there is a concept for every space if you can stretch your imagination.
Let me tell you a little story. When I was 23, my then boyfriend (now husband) and I bought our first house. It was a stone farmhouse right outside Philadelphia, and the original structure dated from the 1770s—needless to say, the place had character, with its deep window sills, wide plank hardwood floors, and stone walls. When we bought it, however, it was HIDEOUS. Every surface in the kitchen was pink, including the ceiling, which we discovered (to our horror) only after we painted the rest of the kitchen white. We had blue shag rugs, pink sparkles in the popcorn ceilings, really delightful wallpaper, and some of the most, um, interesting construction techniques I’ve seen.
We spent about 5 years renovating this house, painstakingly removing the dated 80s décor and refurbishing it back to its original character. I spent hours agonizing over paint colors (while actually learning a ton about color theory and discovering my own palette preferences in the process). I became the world champion of craigslist antique shopping, trying to find all the right décor and furniture. I even spent two days laying individual tiny marble tiles in a mosaic pattern on my bathroom. Every detail was painstakingly thought out and designed. And I Never. Shot. Any of it. You see, about a year after we bought our house, was when I started to become interested in photography. I’d started in landscape but quickly shifted gears and got really interested in beauty and fashion work. And like many new photographers, I became mesmerized by the works of Annie with her Oliphants, and was convinced that the purest form of fashion was to shoot beautiful clothes against a painted backdrop. Soon I had painted my first (of many) backdrops, which I hung up in my converted parlor studio. And there it remained until the day we sold our house. Now obviously, given my current body of work, it should be evident that I have some serious self-loathing issues for never capitalizing on a space that I had poured my heart and soul into. Hell, in retrospect it would have been an amazing backdrop (albeit in a completely different way) before renovations began. But photography is a process of learning, experimenting and growing, and at the time I wasn’t ready to create the type of environmental work I’m interested in creating now. Perhaps if we stayed a little bit longer…but I digress. In any case, I’ve been thoroughly cured of my location photography phobia, and subsequently learned the value of making the most out of a space—even if that space isn’t all that exciting.
How Can We Make A Boring Space Interesting?
How Can We Make A Boring Space Interesting?
There are three things that you can do to help make any space work in a photo. These three things are:
We can also change up the lighting. The above scenes are shot in the same location (albeit a different angle) than the spaghetti dinner party, but instead of that cool hard light source meant to mimic moonlight, I used a softer more diffused light. I also changed up the color by using warm CTO gels to mimic afternoon light instead of the cool CTBs for the spaghetti scene. So now that you’ve seen a couple examples, stay tuned for Part II. where I’ll going to walk you through a shoot I did recently so you can get a better sense of my process and how this all comes together in my head and in practice!
About the Author
About the Author
Kate Woodman is a portrait photographer born in Darmstadt, Germany, but she currently calls Portland, Oregon her home. She is a structural preservation engineer by training, and her love of photography was born in 2011. If you’d like to see more of her work, make sure to visit her website and follow her on Instagram. This article was also published here and shared with permission, and you can see the Part II on this link.
