Some tips for photographing soft furnishings

Some tips for photographing soft furnishings

Today we are mostly photographing soft furnishings. Curtains and fabrics do more than keep the light out or cover the sofa. They're a really great source of material for creative camera work. Have a look around. Everywhere. In the kitchen, the living area, the bedroom, anywhere you have fabrics as decoration. Thing is, what you want to bring out in a photograph is what you like about the fabrics you've chosen so that you can use lighting and composition to get a viewer to appreciate it too. A curtain's a curtain. A cushion just makes the sofa look nice. Over the door to the garden there's a calico curtain. Not necessarily interesting in itself, but the thing about calico is that if you photograph it in sunlight you get some really lovely shadowing going on because it's thin and lets light through.


FIG 1 
Canon EOS 300D 
1/25 @ f8 DISO 100 18-55mm @ 51mm.

 Nice control of the gathers and enough detail of the loops to give it interest. And a nice detail in the jagged edge of the shadow too. There are some lovely light patterns in there and a mix of textures, and you've got that rich creamy colour of the unbleached calico. Composition is interesting because you've got things 'going on' left and right of those central gathers and the jagged edge suggests torn material too. Home in on the detail. Otherwise a curtain is just a curtain. 

Exactly. What you've brought out is the qualities of the calico and the way it changes in relation to light. You could have some fun with this now by bringing out the shapes and texture a bit more. Making the viewer really look at the patterns. 





FIG 2 Levels lightened, colour cast at 10% saturation.

Colour dropper to pick blue from the image to give a 1 pixel border by expanding the canvas by 2 pixels length and width, then 30 pixels white border, and 2 more pixels of the blue. Sharpened using high pass and filtered as soft light at 50%. Nice soft, appealing image. Brings out the delicacy of the cotton calico and the shapes and patterns of the folds. The toning gives it a very soft, dreamy morning light look too. Suggestive of stillness and dawn choruses and all that.

How about these tea towels. So what kind of image are you looking for? A straight picture of comfy cushions on a sofa is nice if you're doing interior design shots. But if you're wanting more creativity then think about the textures and the colours. Red and black. And the tassels. How can you use them to say something else in the picture apart from the fact that they're cushions, play around with them. Brainstorm a bit. Black cushions - what do they suggest. They'd run out of nice colours at the shop? Very possibly. But I can think of Japanese design, or the association with meditation. How about trying to convey something of that in an image. Make it a more formal presentation rather than suggesting comfort, and think about the design of the whole image including the framing. 

OK. Hand me that bedsheet. 





FIG 3 
Canon EOS 300D 
1/5 @ f5.6 DISO 200 18-55mm @ 35mm

Extra layer added with 20% Gaussian and erased over the tassel and parts of the cushions. Flattened, then sharpened using high pass and soft light at 30%. Black border added by extending left and right sides by 1 pixel, and top and bottom by 30 pixels each (60 altogether). 

Very nice Japanese feel to this with the border and the very simple composition, and good bold colours against the pale background of the cream sheet. And a nice focal point with the tassel in the foreground. Soft enough to suggest texture and yet controlled enough to bring out the design and composition.