HNS Signs are one of those clients where the brief is never quite the same twice.
They’re a specialist signage company who call us in regularly to photograph their installations — and over the years we’ve shot everything from fairly straightforward external signage to some genuinely unusual and creative interior projects. This particular commission was one of the more technically interesting ones.
The installation
The project covered three separate areas within a client’s learning centre. Each had its own character, but the connecting thread was custom-designed and printed wallpaper — used not just as decoration but as an active part of the brand environment.
The first area featured specially produced wallpaper with large-format 3D letters mounted over it. The letters had an unusual detail: black string applied across them in a random pattern, creating a striking visual texture. Getting that texture to read properly in a photograph requires directional lighting — flat, even light would have made the letters look two-dimensional and killed the effect entirely.
The second area combined more custom wallpaper — this time incorporating the company logo and geometric shapes — with further 3D elements. Again, the challenge was lighting that showed the relief of the letters standing off the wall without losing the wallpaper detail behind them. Those two things want different treatment, and finding the balance took some adjustment.
The third area was a meeting room featuring a cloud-shaped whiteboard set into the centre of the wallpaper design — fitted after the paper was dry and positioned precisely within the composition. A detail that required careful attention to show clearly in the final image without the whiteboard surface creating problematic reflections.
What location photography like this actually involves
Commercial location photography in an office or interior environment means working around the building’s existing light — which is almost never what you need. Fluorescent overheads, mixed colour temperatures, windows in the wrong places. We bring our own lighting to every location shoot, which gives us control regardless of what the space has.
It also means working efficiently and unobtrusively. A client’s premises is a working environment, and a photography crew that disrupts the day or takes twice as long as expected isn’t doing their job properly. We’ve been doing this long enough to set up quickly, adapt to what the space presents, and get what we need without making ourselves a nuisance.
HNS Signs were kind enough to provide a testimonial after this project, which always means a great deal. We’ve been photographing their work for years and it’s one of those ongoing client relationships we genuinely value.
You can read the full HNS Signs case study here. And if you’re looking for a photographer to document an installation, interior project or commercial environment, get in touch — we’d love to hear about it.
To find out more about our commercial photography work, visit our service page.
Related reading: How Our Photography Helped HNS Signs Win an Industry Award.
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