Australian photographer Jodie Johnson can trace her passion for architecture and interior design back to her grandmother, who built what she now remembers as “a very modern home” back in the 1960s. Spending time there as a child helped shape her aesthetic as an adult, and after fifteen years as a self-described “suit” in the advertising and design agency, she took the plunge and devoted herself to making pictures. Since then, her career has taken her to some of the most glamorous, historic, and cutting-edge houses and apartments in Melbourne, Brighton, Victoria, and beyond.
“Australia has had an infatuation with renovating over the past ten years,” Johnson tells us. The trend is a practical one, as Melbourne, in particular, has made international headlines because of its astronomically growing population. But the fascination with design runs deeper than the new development. In some ways, beautiful, aspiration living spaces have become a cultural fixture; Johnson thinks reality television has become so popular (at least in part) because of the public’s desire to renovate and redecorate.
Still, Johnson is most drawn to places that are as timeless as they are current. “I’m interested in the trend of preserving old and iconic homes that are irreplaceable,” she explains. “I love seeing older homes adapted to modern living.” She’s also seen people put on recent additions while taking into account the history of the home and incorporating old-fashioned features.
[sstk-pullquote align=”right”]She monitors the sun’s movements and takes into account the orientation of any given house so that she can be there at precisely the right time.[/sstk-pullquote]
Johnson has built up a network of interior designers and builders who grant her access to properties in exchange for some of her beautiful photographs. Display homes are perfect for her purposes, but she’s happy to photograph “any interior that is contemporary, uncluttered, and well-styled.”
And Johnson is always on the job. She monitors the sun’s movements and takes into account the orientation of any given house so that she can be there at precisely the right time. Once while she was visiting her parents in Victoria, the photographer’s mother mentioned a display home nearby. Of course, Johnson ended up meeting the owner and photographing the home. “I got ninety images from that shoot,” she remembers. “And they’ve been selling well since day one online.”
Johnson was recently featured in the Shutterstock Contributor Infographic as a top earner, and the data showed that “Scandinavian Interior” was the top-trending keyword in the whole of Australia. It makes sense to the photographer; the Scandinavian style is elegant and attainable at the same time. “It works well in a contemporary beach shack,” she says. “It’s laid-back, clean, and easy to emulate.”
Scandinavian design might also lend itself particularly well to stock photography. “Scandi style does afford clean, white, bright photos, and research shows that white images are generally more popular on social media,” Johnson admits. “Perhaps there’s something in that. Plus with stock photography, negative space for text is desirable, so white walls are the perfect backdrop.”
We asked Johnson to share some of her clean and sophisticated images along with her best tips for photographing interiors.
“This is one of my favorite homes I shot in 2016. It was an original mid-century modern home in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne that had been renovated and extended in keeping with the original architectural style.”
“This was a beautifully styled children’s bedroom in a display home that had an ugly boundary fence right outside the window. I cloned in the Australian native garden to remove the detraction and really give it an Australian feel.”
Tip 1
Wherever possible, use natural window light for interiors. Working on a tripod allows you to slow the shutter speed down to let in enough light. I love the shadows and clean feel that natural daylight provides. Putting on overhead house lights can create all sorts of different colored light and unnatural shadows.
“This is a beautiful brand-new clean white bathroom in a custom-built display home in country Victoria. In such a neutral-toned room, the pop of green from the leaves really helped bring this image to life.”
“Here is a custom-built display home in regional Victoria. The original image had a metal fence down the driveway and a glass office where the garage door is. I cloned both of these so that it doesn’t look like a display home!”
“This is the dining room in an old art deco ground-floor apartment in St Kilda that had been recently renovated and decorated in a contemporary white Scandi scheme in 2016.”
Tip 2
Negative space allows for the photo buyer to add their own text, and it also brings balance to an image. It creates breathing space around the subject and draws the viewer’s eye in. Don’t just shoot the overall room; go for details too. One of my go-to compositions is to show only part of the bed with the bedside table, which usually allows for some nice breathing space.
“This is a bedroom in the same apartment as the image above. I opened the balcony door to let in more natural light, but I still needed the bedside lamp and pendant on to help light the darker side of the room.”
“This art deco apartment living room has soaring high ceilings and beautiful features such as picture rails, a grand fireplace mantle, and pretty windows. The pine floorboards have been lightened to complement the Scandi style.”
“This was a very contemporary entry with crisp, clean lines and a polished concrete floor. I needed to combine a couple of exposures here to brighten the hallway without overexposing the living room at the end.”
Tip 3
I know photo trends have headed towards the authentic, unposed, Instagram style in the last couple of years; however, I’m a stickler for perfectly straight horizontal or vertical lines for interiors. Maybe it’s my background in graphic design, but an interior with wonky walls just doesn’t sit right with me! So get it straight in camera, and finesse it later in Photoshop if you have to.
“This upstairs apartment was part of an art deco complex of two, decorated in a similar style to its downstairs neighbor but with its own unique pieces. The light in these living rooms was beautiful and bounced around off the white walls and ceiling.”
“This room was an addition to the original mid-century home. The angled ceiling mirrors the roof of the original part of the house, creating a butterfly style roof, which was very much an architectural feature of that time.”
“This is at my home! It was a quick shot pulled together with a few elements I had nearby. I borrowed the cow’s head ornament from my sister; the dried berry twigs were leftover Christmas table decorations, and the furniture is mine. The lighting is natural from the large window to the left.”
Tip 4
It’s okay to overexpose windows. If a property doesn’t have an awesome view outside or something worth looking at, let the window overexpose. It won’t detract from the interior you’re trying to showcase. But if there is something worth seeing outside, I take multiple exposures and combine them later in Photoshop.
“I try to capture as many variations as I can at each location. This simply styled bedroom has lots of negative space and is very versatile as a stock image.”
“This image is composed like a “sneak peek” into a gorgeous master bedroom. The half-open door gives the image buyer options to convey themes like “opening,” “reveal,” and “welcome.””
“I just love the color of the door and that chair together! I’ve seen this image used by a wallpaper company who cloned one of their designs on the entry wall behind the chair. It looked great.”
Tip 5
Wear black. I learned this the hard way. A colored or striped/busy top will find its way into a reflection somewhere! Interiors are full of reflections, from the shower screen or bathroom mirror to a window or even the glass on the oven. It’s best to try to avoid your reflection appearing anywhere by using a remote trigger, but if you do find yourself reflected somewhere, a black t-shirt is much easier to clone out and hide into the background than something really bright or patterned.
