Client: Homeowner (name kept anonymous)
Project Type: Interior Photography
Space Type: Duplex Apartment Home
Location: Pune, India
About the Project
This shoot came together a little differently from most. Rather than being commissioned through an interior designer, architect, or builder, I was contacted directly by the homeowner himself, via word of mouth, who had painstakingly designed the entire space and had every piece of furniture custom built. The result was a home that carried both modern comfort and old-world charm, right in the heart of Pune.
What made the space fascinating was its contrast: stark white walls sat against a home that felt warm through and through, a warmth carried entirely by everything else, the colours, artifacts, art, soft pastels, greens, flowers, and upholstery. Individually, each element felt understated, but together, they came together into something close to magic. The living space stood as the true anchor of the home, around which everything else seemed to orbit.
The Brief
The brief was to style and document the space for the homeowner's personal use, with an added layer of purpose: he was considering launching a furniture business, so strong, considered photographs of each custom piece were essential. With no interior designer or stylist on set, a significant amount of styling responsibility fell to me directly, down to choosing exactly which coloured flowers would sit in which room, and how.
One particularly memorable moment: six hours before the shoot, still without the right centrepiece for the living room table, I made a trip to a local flower store and picked up striking purple blooms, which ended up becoming the hero element across nearly every shot.
The Approach
The homeowner had very specific expectations for the shoot, so even with angles roughly planned in advance, getting to the final set of shots took some back-and-forth discussion. I leaned heavily on horizontal compositions throughout, which felt like the natural choice for doing justice to the scale of the space and the way its many individual elements blended seamlessly into one another.
