Lighting a Historic Room

I was asked recently to assist in documenting a historic home in Sugar House, Utah through photography. The large home is over 120 years old and was originally built by a gold miner from Park City. Even though the home is currently used as an office, the decor is very reminiscent of an early 20th century home.

When capturing the interior, my goal was to light the rooms in a way to show the detail and accentuate the features without making it appear that strobes were used. With my friend Harley's assistance, we used multiple lights to create the look.

This formal sitting room was lit with four lights. We placed a radio triggered strobe in the lamp on the right to make it appear like the lamp was lighting the room. There is a second radio triggered strobe in the back-left corner. To light the foreground we placed two lights with umbrella diffusers in the near corners.

I am fairly pleased with the result. There are a couple of shadows I would have liked to remove, but overall the lighting is fairly even and natural looking.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L IS lens - 1/15 second, f/5.6, ISO 100