Beautiful Photos in Renovation Chaos

Let’s be honest, most of us don’t live in a perfect show home. We have little people (I also have a big person 6’4 who is exactly the same) who think that it’s their sole purpose in life to rush through each room like whirlwinds – destroying everything in their path. I know this better than most. I seem to spend my days tidying a room, only to find that no sooner have I moved into the next one…that’s right, the first one looks like a bomb has hit it again – you’ve all been there.

Before, I used to think that in order to take beautiful pictures I would need to completely gut the room in question. This just made me miserable. Well let me share a few secrets with you, but don’t tell a soul….promise??

Our Story

In Summer 2020, my family moved into a ‘new’ home. I use the term loosely, because although it’s new to us, in fact it’s a 17th century farmhouse. My children are the 5th generation of the family to live here, and it looks like it hasn’t had any work done for years! Around the same time, I bought my first DSLR camera – a pre-loved Nikon D3200. Prior to this I had never even held a ‘proper camera’! I would pore over all the gorgeous portraits that I would see my peers posting on Facebook and exclaim over their gorgeous kitchens and amazing light and airy bedrooms. I began to wish that I had never moved from my totally renovated, previous home. Luckily, in those early days it was summer and there was plenty of opportunity to learn outdoors as the British weather was occasionally dry.

Beautiful photos in renovation chaos

Fast forward a few months and the nights were beginning to draw in and the days were too cold for me to drag 4 kids out into the woods everyday. I needed to find a way to take photos in my dark, messy house with it’s ‘antique’ carpets and wallpaper. People tried to convince me that I should be taking documentary style photos that embraced the chaos. They said that I would look back in years to come with fondness of memories of the babies learning to write their names in the dust. But I really don’t think they grasped the magnitude of works that were required in this house! Every room had these busy patterned carpets, dingy wallpaper and ugly fireplaces. There was also the question of my husband who insist on leaving tools and materials and paperwork on every surface and in every room.

The answer to this dilemma was making light and shadows work in my favour, along with a few other little tricks. Sometimes we also need to deal with outdoor chaos- well these tips are so versatile you can even use them when people have dared to be in the park or at the beach when you want to photograph the family! Here is my advice for creating beautiful photos in renovation chaos.

Change your Angle

It may be that if you shoot from above or below or move off to one side that the clutter may not be as obvious. A little bit of chaos is childlike and even I can admit that it adds to the storytelling.

Zoom In – No…..even closer!!!

Focus on all the small detailed things you love about your child – their mucky little feet when they’ve been playing bare-foot, their messy faces after spaghetti bolognaise, their little hands when they roll the dice or pick up a jigsaw piece. Remember that the closer you are to your subject, the narrower your depth of field will be – compensate by narrowing the aperture of your lens.

Make the theme work in your favour

I’m not a massive fan of the vintage tiles or antique garish carpets (I know some people think they are gorgeous), but in some photos I really think they lend themselves well.

Play with light

Sometimes you can disguise an area by using the window light cleverly. If you expose for the highlights, you will find the shadows just melt away! This can be enhanced further in post processing by dropping the shadows even further or adding manual adjustments using the tools in Lightroom. My favourites are the graduated filter and adjustment brush in Lightroom or the levels layers in Photoshop to achieve this effect.

Create your own studio-style

I love the ‘make do and mend’ approach from the WW2 era and now have lots of tricks up my proverbial sleeve to create diy backdrops in my home and edit in such a way now that I can ‘fudge’ many things in post-processing.

If you would like to learn more about this fun and creative approach, please join me as we go behind the scenes @ ‘on the naughty step headquarters’ in my brand new course ‘Storytelling for the Chaotic Life’ released 25th September and available in the Hello Storyteller academy.

So remember everyone…. Leave the mess and get clicking create those memories because “Cobwebs be quiet and dust go to sleep – I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep”

Check out Samantha’s new course: Storytelling for the Chaotic Life

I would love to hear what you think of my ideas for creating beautiful photos in renovation chaos! P lease do show me if you create anything using the tips I have found useful. I am always looking for new ideas to try myself as this house is going to be a loooong project. So if you have tried any other techniques out, I would also love to hear about them.

For more inspiration, follow Samantha on Instagram!