More of my work as an interior photographer in another great Dorset private residence – one with a very cool swimming pool.

Another fantastic private house. Another great photography job. This commission was photographing a house for the owners prior to them marketing it for sale. This is why I love photography. I love buildings. They fascinate me. And my photography has given me numerous opportunities to visit buildings most people aren't lucky enough even to know about.

Like a house with a separate swimming pool!

This was a great space to photograph. I wanted the water, the reflections and the feeling of light and space from all those opening doors.

So a low level shot was called for.

Lying on the floor – that low.

I took a few shots of this great room, but this is my favourite picture, capturing all the parts of the scene I wanted.

I took the white balance from the first image in this room, where I laid a grey card on the floor. In Lightroom all I needed to do was set the white balance by clicking on the grey card in the image, then simply copying and pasting the white balance settings to this image.

White balance does not have to be difficult! And this gave me the correct starting point for this image.

The next job normally is to sort the verticals and horizontals.

The image is correctly white balanced, and straight and true.

Next is working through the basic panel.

I dropped the highlights to -79, and boosted the shadows to 100.

I added contrast +36

Then I added an early vignette, just -14, as I needed To see the end point before the next adjustment, which was to lighten the pool using the dodge tool. I added a lump of clarity to this mask, and boosted the shadows.

Next I lightened up the ceiling using a graduated filter with an increase of 1 stop

I then warmed the image up as it was looking too cold, moving the temperature slider to 4143. I still needed to correct the white balance at the beginning as I needed the right starting point.

Next I boosted the blues, darkened them a bit, then toned down the greens which were too vibrant.

Last adjustment was to lighten the internal face of the walls to brighten them.

Image done.

No Photoshop required – just Lightroom.

This was a single image, taken on my Canon 5D with Canon 17-40mm lens in the days before I knew abut HDR! I have absolutely no doubt that if I took this image now I would take three bracketed shots and merge them (well two of them) in Lightroom.

But the image is strong, meaning it works well.

I have said this before and I will say it yet again – It is not the kit you use that matters, it is what you point the kit at!

Footnote.

On review of this image I have decided that I need to remove the recess to the right hand side – it annoys me and distracts.

I will post this tomorrow – let me know if you prefer this enhancement to this image. It might just be me……

Rick McEvoy Photography Blog

Saturday 27th August 2016