More Coloured Boxes

A while back I made a post about dealing with interiors which had painted ceilings. That was a tiny bungalow which didn’t pose too much of a problem. This one however,was a larger terraced house with various sizes of rooms which had been completely refurbished, then painted with strong colours throughout.

All ceilings were brown, green, sandy, mustard etc, and so I needed to retreat to the car immediately to get the big white reflector out of the boot. Each room required the use of the reflector as an artificial ceiling so I could bounce the light from it into the room. This ensured accurate colour rendition, while the natural light shot produced the tones that I could use for the overall feel of the room lighting. The exception was the kitchen/diner which was painted in racing green throughout, but had a dark cream ceiling. For this room I bounced from the ceiling in 3 spots, then used the raw files to reduce the colour temperature overall, and manually took some more warmth out of the ceiling in Adobe Photoshop.

The toilet was the most difficult shot, as there was nowhere to hide when getting light into it. I shot direct light into it from both sides, then masked myself out of the two frames afterwards. I might buy a small softbox to use on my Godox AD200’s in the future for these types of rooms. Amazon beckons.

Anyway, it was a nice shoot, and one of those houses that will sell within a week as a holiday let or second home. The town of Amble is quickly turning into another one of those destinations on the Northumberland coastline being taken over by temporary holiday homes. Not so long ago, there was a steady stream of homes becoming available which were suitable for small families to live in, but now the prices have soared - making them impossible to access unless you’re a wealthy southerner looking to add to your wealth at the expense of the poor people of the prior fishing and coalmining villages which are quickly being drained of a permanent population.