Scandinavian Interiors by My S95

In Scandinavia, a photographer would hardly go short of subjects especially in architecture. From the many landmarks I visited, the interiors were always unique and interesting. Out of the norm, it was a good attempt to zoom into particular subjects - to get some detail views that show interesting furnishing and architectural features in isolation. Ways to make sure that the key elements are given emphasis involve color and lighting, besides removing distracting items from your composition. Less really is more. One thing I always did is spending a lot of time looking up towards the ceiling for interesting chandeliers.

The Golden Hall at Stockholm City Hall.

The starry night sky at Council Chamber.

Zooming out, your subject will be the entire portion of the room that you see in your camera's LCD. When you're photographing a room, it's always better to use the widest angle to take in as much of the room as possible. With the limitation of the S95, it's advisable to choose part of the room to photograph instead.

One important point is to ensure a proper vertical perspective. I found it awkward if the columns were not straightly aligned. To ensure that the verticals stay vertical, try and keep the camera completely horizontal. The key step to avoiding this is to make sure that you point your camera straight ahead and don't let it tilt down or up.

On average, it is always much darker indoors than outdoors. Initially it is maybe easier to shoot the room  using natural light if it has a suitably-sized window. But, make sure that you avoid having an extremely bright window in the scene since that will tend to create exposure problems. Alternatively, you may want to shoot at dusk or night time. If that's the case, exposure will need to be long so I'll switch the flash off and use a tripod with the camera’s self timer.

The Nordic Museum.

I'm always looking out for different angle to shoot from, which can give a different feel to an image. Most interior photographers shoot around head height or just above ground level.