In September 2020 I was commissioned by PGT Reclaimed to capture interior images in their Binh Duong furniture showroom as well as capturing some corporate images in their office.
PGT Reclaimed are the global leader and original manufacturer of furniture made from 100% solid reclaimed wood which mostly comes from larch, pine, fir and assorted semi hardwoods reclaimed from discarded packing crates, pallets and dismantled buildings.
After an initial conversation brand manager Yung she invited me out to the office to discuss the shoot and together we took a quick look around the office and the showroom to work out the requirements for the shoot. The images where to be used in a book that they were publishing and Yung wanted 3 corporate images showing the office entrance, the staff at work in the office and a boardroom meeting and 3 interior images of the inside of their showroom. I had brought my camera to the meeting so I quickly scouted out the location to work out the best angles to shoot from. Yung then selected the angles that she liked best and made some notes on elements of the images that she wanted corrected on the shoot do such as furniture being moved.
We booked the shoot day for the following week and as some of the images were going to quite complicated to light I decided to come in again the day before the shoot so as to work out final positioning and help to direct the set up and arrangement of furniture and props with the stock movers so as to save time on the shooting day. I also worked out my camera position and marked out the tripod position on the show room floor so that I could get get back into the same position the following day.
We scheduled the exterior shot of the office entrance early on the first morning so that entrance of the building would be lit with sunshine on arrival the weather was looking ideal. Yung wanted some staff in the image so I tried a few variations with three staff members walking out of the building and in the end we chose the below frame where I felt the girls looked really balanced within the frame. I then used additional frames taken when the wind was blowing to capture the flags as Yung wanted to remove the tree logo on the second sliding glass door I took some frames with that door open so that it was easier to remove it in post. In the final image I retouched two of the palm trees as well.
The interiors were the most complicated images though as the showroom was huge and two of the images included areas of mixed lighting with daylight coming though the windows at one end of the showroom only and the large dividers between different areas meant that many parts of the showroom were lit by the existing spotlights which created some colour balance issues. Below is a before and after image showing what the room looked like with the showroom lighting versus my final image where I added additional lighting. By lighting the image I was able make sure that each piece of furniture popped from the image and I was also able to reduce the harsh top down shadows from the many spot lights on the ceiling.
My approach was to photograph the room in 3 stages with the first of the images taken in the late afternoon while the natural light streaming through the windows was strongest. I did this version with the house lights off and I used some flash to fill the shadows.
I then focused on the front desk and the Reclaimed logo. I photographed it with the house lights off but with the light behind the logo on so that I could capture the tungsten glow behind the logo. I used large soft light sources to light the wooden surfaces and these created much more pleasing shadows.
I then lit each piece of furniture in the room with the dining table and my flash lights in the rooms without any natural light were warmed up with CTO gels on them so that these rooms appeared warmer in colour as they do to the eye in real life.
The final image was a seamless blend of the flash lit images mixed with the image of the showroom without any lighting.
It was a complicated shoot and the post production was pretty complicated too but I think the extra effort was worth it and Yung was extremely happy with the final images.
A behind the scenes look into an interior and exterior architectural project that I shot for New World Hoiana Beach Resort in Hoi An, Vietnam in early 2023. In this post I explain how I approach replacing skies when the weather doesn’t play along during a shoot.