Photography Idol: Jonas Ingerstedt

The most challenging new skill we’ve had to tackle as bloggers is photography.  There’s not much more frustrating than blogging about a project that looks beautiful in person, but might as well be cat barf in the photos.  And poorly lit cat barf at that.  Our quest to take effective, lovely photos is ongoing – this blog serves as a thorough and sometimes mortifying record of our efforts – and we often seek out inspiration and instruction in images taken by others.

Jonas Ingerstedt is a Swedish photographer and an absolute idol of ours.  His exquisite interior photography is featured in international magazines, including Elle Decor, and many of our favorite images are his.  While the trend in the blog world is toward hyper-bright overexposed spaces – images that at the extreme necessitate sunglasses and eradicate detail – Ingerstedt’s photos are luminous but soft, with a quality of light that makes the rooms he’s shooting somehow seem both magical and real.

Red House West || Jonas IngerstedtRed House West || Jonas Ingerstedt
Getting colors to read true in images is a struggle, but he captures them beautifully, making them look rich and saturated, but not overwrought.

Red House West || Jonas IngerstedtRed House West || Jonas IngerstedtRed House West || Jonas Ingerstedt

We’ve learned a lot by studying how he frames a shot – how he surrounds his focal point with just a glimpse of the surrounding furniture, providing context and enabling our eye to extrapolate the blissful whole.

Red House West || Jonas Ingerstedt
Red House West || Jonas IngerstedtHe also uses a home’s architecture to highlight a space, inviting us to walk in and look more closely:

Red House West || Jonas Ingerstedt

Red House West || Jonas IngerstedtThe angle from which he shoots vignettes makes it feel like you could reach your hand out to touch the spines of books, or as if you’ve just opened a drawer and are looking down into its colorful contents.

Red House West || Jonas Ingerstedt

Red House West || Jonas Ingerstedt

Red House West || Jonas Ingerstedt

His work is gorgeous, right? Do you have a favorite? We hope you had a fantastic weekend and we’ll be back on Wednesday!

10 responses on “Photography Idol: Jonas Ingerstedt

  1. Nina

    Never really stopped to think about it, but you’re right about the “hyper bright overexposed” photography that’s everywhere in blog land. These (gorgeous) images are so rich. The comparison that popped into my mind is: walking through a gallery filled with wall after wall of Lichtensteins and then turning a corner and coming upon a series by Andrew Wyeth. The former is sort of in your face and keeps you at a remove, whereas the latter draws you in and lets you quietly experience it.

    My favorites (since you asked!) are the one taken behind the couch, looking through the doorway with the gallery wall – talk about drawing you in – and all the vignette shots.

    Really enjoyed this post!

  2. Sally

    This is a really good thoughtful post. The images are beautiful and interesting but really it’s your words that are important here as they have allowed me to really see the compositions and understand the framing rather than gliding over them in a pinterest grazing kind of way. Thank you.

    1. Katie

      Thank you Sally! ‘Grazing’ is a good verb for Pinterest – I’m a greedy consumer of the pretty photos, and often have to remind myself to slow down so I actually get something out of them.

  3. Gillianne

    In a click-through online world, I may be a vanishing breed, but your descriptive prowess — illustrating with words — is one reason I’m drawn to your blog. Don’t sell that talent short.

    But oh my yes, this photographer is something special. Great selection of images.

  4. Jessica

    I also like the gallery wall seen through the door frame, as well as how you analyzed what he’s doing here.

    Thoughts about what he’s doing technically? Looks like his depth of field is not super shallow and he’s trying to basically keep a lot of the rooms in focus in the broader non-vignette shots?

    cactiandmountains.com

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