Koster and Company's Kathy Koster needed to show a vacant office suite in downtown Chicago to best advantage for a sales piece to attract new tenants for the space. After surveying the site earlier in the summer, we settled on a list of five shots which would best convey the features of the two floor office suite.
The main reception area shown here was lit entirely with existing lighting, using no supplemental flash as is typically required in architectural interior work. The trick was to make multiple captures at different exposures to correctly render the floor and wall surfaces, as well as the ceiling where the light fixtures would 'burn out' in a conventional exposure. The resulting files could then be blended together to give a truly accurate rendition of how the space looks with its indirect lighting.
This approach provided the enormous advantage of allowing us to complete all the shots in a short time without the considerable amount of lighting equipment a shot like this would require if shot conventionally. While we did occasionally use a small amount of strobe to lighten certain areas in some of the other shots, this digital technique reduced the need for such lighting to almost nil.
The five shots, including an exterior view of the building captured from an adjacent "L" train platform, were completed in half a day.
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