Behind the scenes at a photo shoot…

…it’s hectic, often a scramble to clean up, but mostly loads of fun.  We had two fast and furious days, shooting six houses in total.  We strive to have the houses look as though someone lives there but we don’t want them to look like a complete mess.   Who wants to look at a design website with photos of dishes in the sink or clothes piled on beds?   I think that, it goes without saying, the secrets of a successful photo shoot shows a home  “staged” to be design worthy but most peoples’ houses don’t actually look like this everyday. Especially if three kids and a dog live there.

DECLUTTER

For example, given that this is my personal bedroom, I can tell you that this bed is NEVER made.   I am of the “let-it-air-out” philosophy, so I generally just leave the duvet folded over at the end and the decorative pillows are artfully arranged only when company’s coming…

Not to mention, my closet and den don’t normally look like this either…

At one client’s house, kitchen clutter of the usual kind  (stacks of business cards, receipts and such on this cake stand) was temporarily banished and limes added for a color pop… ah, just take in the kitchen details instead…

The limes reference the adjacent dining area with pops of green…

This male client has more products than any woman I know, including a vast cologne collection that he neatly arranges on his bathroom counters.   We carefully cleared the counters, added flowers and made it photo worthy so you can appreciate the material choices instead…

The same white roses made an appearance the next day in a silver baby cup on this normally cluttered make-up/vanity area…

FLOWERS

Speaking of reusing flowers…same yellow flowers here…

…and here…

…and here…

Three different houses, same flowers all three times.  Just different containers and different arrangements.  We hope that no one is looking that closely at our website:)

And more flowers…always grocery-store purchased and never perfectly arranged…

THROWS AND PILLOWS

Throws figure prominently and we always travel to photo shoots with extras in our trunks.   In this case one of mine worked perfectly in a client’s house (in fact, I ended up gifting it to her!)…

This throw is strewn about, and a magazine at the ready for this ample reading chair…

THE SECRETS OF A SUCCESSFUL PHOTO SHOOT IS IN THE DETAILS

The owner had moved things slightly since we’d been there but we restored our little vignette so the birdies appeared to be eating the jewels…a nod to the homeowner’s mother…

And finally, three of us had to refresh our memories how to set up a chess game…embarrassing but true…

It truly is in the details and, because we love what we do, it doesn’t seem like work on these days 🙂  Read here to see how we can make your home photo-ready!

 

*All photography by Catherine Nguyen Photography