Rangefinder Magazine
September 2005

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Eric Roth’s Interior Photography by Steve Trerotola
Lighting and Other Professional Techniques With Style

Eric Roth began his freelance business in college (University of Connecticut, Storrs) as one of a handful of serious photography students on a large campus. He produced and sold photos to various academic departments, school and alumni publications, a photo lab and a number of individual clients.

After graduating with a BA in a custom program in photography and film, he moved to Boston, MA, and freelanced for small weekly newspapers in the greater Boston area. As an admirer of beautiful furniture and an amateur woodworker, he began shooting furniture for home-furnishings stores and interior designers while continuing his freelance work in photojournalism and PR. Ultimately, he took a job with WCVB-TV in Boston as a staff photographer. After four years of full-time employment, he saved $25,000—enough to open a commercial studio in Boston.

In his 15 years downtown, he did almost every kind of photography imaginable and he eventually learned the value of finding your own niche. When he finally decided to concentrate on interiors, Roth experienced a surge of acceptance and visibility. He soon moved his studio to a large 150-year-old carriage house 20 miles north of Boston and realized the benefits of lower overhead, greater control and easy parking. Roth now works from his studio with a staff of three, plus various freelancers, and the stream of clients continues to flow.

Most of his work is now editorial interiors shot on location, but the studio has become an invaluable base to organize and handle stock photo sales, print orders, and to do any other activities he decides to take on.

Roth has a great feeling of autonomy and creative control with this studio; these are the best advantages of the freelance life. With his team of employees, Roth enjoys a feeling of fulfillment and esprit de corps. “I couldn’t have asked for a better career,” says Roth.

Interior Photography
If you’re a serious shooter interested in breaking into the home-interior photography market, I heartily recommend Roth’s book, Interior Photography: Lighting and Other Professional Techniques With Style (Amphoto Books, 2005).

The book is a comprehensive overview, written by a practicing master in the field. It’s got a down-to-earth style, and is illustrated with many interiors of the quality seen in advertising and coffee-table books. It is Roth’s first “how to” photo book, although he has illustrated numerous books, magazines and newspapers and writes regularly for the Boston Globe.

Attitude
Roth understands that home decorating is a form of artistic expression and that the most beautiful houses are those in which the owners often make statements about who they are. A photograph of the home becomes a portrait of that owner. Experience is the best teacher, he says, and the way to begin building that body of specialized knowledge is to study books and magazines on interior design. Roth says, “Develop a genuine interest in the pursuit of clients who are interior designers and architects or otherwise interested or involved in the decorative arts. Learn to speak their language.”

Spiral stairway looking down

Location
Roth explains in detail the way to approach an assignment. Before you unpack your camera, always scout the location. “Find the feeling of the place and remember that the best photographs are made first in your mind,” advises Roth.

He recommends investing an hour of scouting time and shooting plenty of Polaroids or digital shots, and then another hour reviewing these tests. Make notes of your first impressions as you walk through a location. Use your test shots not only to explore camera angles and views but also to visually back up those first impressions. These will be invaluable tools when you judge the quality of the photographs you eventually shoot. They will help in formulating your opinions about the best angles and views and will also be invaluable in planning the equipment you’ll need, flowers, props, and other accessories you might want to include. Even if you don’t have an assignment, consider scouting those locations that really catch your eye, and send the best of these test shots to a magazine that you think may be interested.

	These beautifully aged antiques don’t feel like old relics. Artistically nestled in this home, they look comfortable in their space and alive with warmth. Roth made sure they were bathed in sunlight to enhance their charm.

When photographing an interior, Roth advises, let the house speak to you and put you in its own special mood. When appropriate, Ross recommends you “compliment the owner or designer, but never, ever be negative. You will insult the home-owner if you don’t seem enthusiastic.”

Seeing
“Photography is first and foremost the art of seeing,” says Roth. “Many of my best shots were right under my nose. I discovered them, as opposed to manufacturing them; they’re found and not contrived.” He goes on to say that an important part of your job is to gather, sort, judge, and edit what is all around you. Take it all in, but don’t over-control the scene. Instead, let spontaneity enter the picture. The sensitive photographer recognizes subtleties, but makes a few improvements to clarify the message.

Some more good advice from Roth is to remember that the essence of a home evaporates if you apply a heavy-handed approach, so avoid overworking the shot. When faced with a challenge, keep in mind that too much control on your part will sap the life out of your photograph. He continues, “Each shot should make a simple and strong visual statement, just enough but not too much. Establish the story with some strong overall views, medium vignettes, and occasional details for texture, beauty, and intimacy.” He also recommends including a variety of horizontal and vertical images and always keeping an eye out for a great cover shot or a double-page spread. Wide-angle room shots benefit from a strong foreground but, he cautions, “be mindful that it’s easy to end up with a busy mess. When this happens, just move or zoom in a little closer to simplify the image.”

Two strobes were popped through a large diffusion panel off to the right to create enough interior light to balance the exterior brightness. A polarizing filter helps darken the sky and reduce reflections in the wall of windows.

Lighting: The Magic Ingredient
Lighting is not an exact science and Roth concludes that there is no one solution to any lighting problem. Interior photographs combine natural window light, artificial room light, and photographer-added or modified natural and artificial light. “Think of each interior lighting situation as a wonderful, and sometimes difficult, puzzle to solve,” he says. “With a little experience you will learn to factor the weather conditions, time of day, and even the season into your lighting decisions.”

Roth sees the lighting dictated by the room. He says, “The precepts of good lighting start with the feeling of the home and the light. From that, everything else will follow.” The lighting should be natural, or at least look natural, as if the light is coming from the room’s windows, lamps, and other lighting the residents would normally use. One should avoid using supplementary lighting that contradicts the natural lighting of the room. He cautions that one should not be afraid of highlights and shadows when they are present. “Let the sunshine in,” he says, “and keep in mind that backlight is beautiful.”

While summer days provide the longest working times, you can shoot great interiors at any time of year. Consider the beauty of other seasons! Late fall, winter and early spring offer the beauty of long streams of sunlight reaching through the windows. Northern winters may also provide a special outdoor reflective white coating on the ground, bouncing soft, clean light up through every window.

	“Ahhh, to walk into this… if only they all could be so good! This architect’s home combines rustic, earthy charm with contemporary architectural details,” says Roth.

The Polaroid Test
Polaroid film is worth its weight in gold to the interior photographer. If your final result is to be shot on film, you can best judge the quality of the lighting by using Polaroid first, because it closely approximates the contrast range of film. The Polaroid can tell you what is good about the light and what needs improvement. According to Roth, clients are invariably pleased with the final film results when they first approve a Polaroid test.

Roth on Digital Photography
According to Roth, film is still the preferred medium for many clients; however, there has been a dramatic increase in the acceptance of digital photography. Digital is invaluable for previewing shots—you save both processing time and costs. You have a sharper, bigger image to look at; particularly if the digital camera is tethered to a laptop—a technique many commercial photographers use to preview the image for a client.

According to Roth, “I find myself using more digital and fewer Polaroids since the book was written. I use a Powerbook for previews, a Kodak SLR/n camera, and Photoshop for tricky lighting situations as well as perspective control.”

“Don’t leave home without ’em” is Roth’s motto for the numerous reflectors that work wonders in allowing him to make the most of natural light.

Photoshop can be used, for example, to copy/paste a detailed window view exposure into a shot with a good interior exposure—the two exposure extremes being impossible to capture in the same frame simultaneously. This is an especially useful technique when you want to show an attractive or interesting environment through the windows.

“One great use of digital, and more specifically Photoshop, is in color balancing the interior. Natural and artificial light comes in many color temperatures. Shooting digitally you have great flexibility in fine-tuning the white balance of the scene. Most DSLRs offer a custom white balance setting that takes into account the varied light sources and color temperatures found in a complex scene like a room interior.”

For more information on Eric Roth and to view his portfolio, visit: www.eric rothphoto.com.

For more information on his book, Interior Photography: Lighting and Other Professional Techniques With Style, visit www.watsonguptill.com or www.amazon.com. 

Steve Trerotola has 40 years experience as a professional photographer and lab executive. His specialties are marketing, photojournalism, sports and law-enforcement photography. He served on Kodak’s Pro Lab Advisory Council, on the board of the Digital Printing Association and headed the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for the Los Angeles Police Department’s Scientific Investigation Division (SID Photo).