Lighting a Historic Room - Part II

Today's image is another room from the SugarHouse mansion that I recently photographed. The purpose of the shoot was to assist an organization in documenting the historic building.

My goal in lighting this room was to show outside detail in the windows while evenly lighting the interior. To accomplish this I placed a Canon 430EX speedlite behind the floral arrangement aimed toward the back wall. The speedlite was diffused with a Lightsphere and set to 1/2 power. I then used two monolights diffused with white umbrellas in the corners to the left and right of the camera.

While the lighting setup was fairly simple on this shot, the tricky part was eliminating reflections in the three windows. Since the windows are each at different angles, the placement of the lights left little room for error. Nearly every reflection was avoided, save for a slight one on the right window.

Another challenge with this room was the bookcases above the windows. I wanted to provide enough light to show depth in the openings but still leaving them somewhat dark. The placement of the monolights in the corners achieved this. I had to raise the lights a bit higher than I initially wanted (creating more noticeable shadows), but the trade off was worth it.

Of all the rooms I shot that day, this one was my favorite. I love the curved wall and the custom woodwork.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/15 second, f/6.3, ISO 100