Traditional Staircase

Here is a traditional-style staircase from a home in Palo Alto, CA, which I shot for real estate marketing purposes.

Traditional Staircase

I really enjoy photographing staircases. I find something about their shapes particularly engaging. Except, perhaps, for very grand ones in luxury homes, staircases are not usually considered to be primary subjects for marketing a home. However, they are often one of the first things one sees when entering a home, and they can say a lot about the general style of a home's interior.

As is often the case for mainstream real estate marketing photography, I had to photograph this staircase at a time of day when the ambient lighting was far from ideal, for which I compensated by creating a substantial part of the interior lighting with several small flashes, one placed on the landing at the top of the stairs, and the rest located on either side of the camera. The purpose of the added lighting was not only to generally brighten up the interior, but to even out the lighting somewhat and to help direct the eye through the scene better. An additional benefit of supplementary strobe lighting is that it brings out textures, and can be especially flattering to wood.