MAGAZINE STYLE PHOTOS

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When shooting interiors for magazines, you will often use strobe lights if people are NOT in the photograph, and ambient light (windows and lightbulbs) if people ARE included in the images.



When people are in the photograph it is often advisable to have them walking, which increases the dynamic aspect of the composition. For a grounding effect, placing stationary people in the background can add to the static/dynamic balance.

If you were to use a flash for my above sample photograph, the people would have a sort of "ghost trail" moving ahead of their bodies. It does not look pleasing! Instead, the technique used is to have your camera on a tripod with no flash or strobe, and experiment with different shutter speeds (or different walking speeds), until you get a motion blur that is not too abstract, and not too still. A good shutter speed to start with is 1/2 second.

If there were no people in the photograph, studio strobes would be helpful to create a more even balance between the large volume of window light, and lesser intensity of interior lighting. While you can certainly still use models with flash or strobe lighting, they will be "frozen" in place, which may reduce the image's marketability.

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