Photographing The Contemporary Interior of a Central London Residence With Panayis Chrysovergis

This weeks featured project comes to us out of Central London. Panayis Chrysovergis photographed this unique private residence, and I’m excited to share all of its bold graphic qualities, leading lines, and interesting textures with you. Let’s jump in!

Right off the bat we see this home’s contemporary interior is steeped in rectilinear shapes and full of punchy black / white contrast. Panayis heightened these elements with a one-point perspective that allows these shapes to shine.

Panayis shared a bit of his photographic process and workflow with us. He mentioned that on location he tries to make as many variations of exposures as possible.

He says “During my post-processing procedure I want to have as many exposures as I can: Natural light, lighting with strobes, in-house lights on and off, and local lighting in the key elements of the house.” Panayis imports these into Lightroom where he does the global corrections, and merges the photos into one final exposure that he polishes off in Photoshop. “My main goal” he says, “is that I don’t want the final images to look very flashy.”

Our eyes are led into the living area by the handrail and the side of the couch. Panayis creates a well styled and cozy feeling scene with lots of visual interests and beautiful textures.

Using black cloths to block the sun streaming in from various windows, Panayis was able to control the light in each scene and give it some directionality. He said that the weather was uncommonly amazing for London during his shoot. The typical clouds and rain were gone and the sun was blazing like he was back in his home country, Greece.

I love this stairwell and the sharp, twisting shape it creates against the white walls. Our eyes are guided down the lines of the stairs, toward the basement.

“The shoot, in general, was very challenging. The house is deployed over 3 floors, and I had a strict time frame to photograph it in one full day” Panayis shares. “The basement was really dark, with a really low ambient light.

At the same time I had to deal with many workers who were finalising different details throughout the whole property.

Additionally, it was the day when the Camranger didn’t want to collaborate with my Fuji – a really nerve breaking situation. After one hour of trying to solve different technical issues (for instance the whole smart home wasn’t properly setup so I had to spend a lot of time asking the electrician to set up necessary settings) I managed to get to work.”

“The following photo completely stood out to me,” he explains. “When I saw the indoor plant on the basement level and where the swimming pool and the spa area are situated, I knew that this would be the winning shot of the whole house. Above the plant is a glass ceiling which also acts as the floor of the ground floor. I really loved this ambiguous idea of the glass: Is it the ceiling or the floor? Depends on where you sit!

Additionally, the combination of natural wood elements, metal and plants with the transparency of the glass, I felt was a connotation of the confining period we have experienced over the past year and a half. We now see glass and immediately associate it with social distancing, whereas here it was beautifully combined with other materials and nature at its core.  When I saw this I knew that I had to set up my camera in the basement and light the plant from the ground floor.”

“I work mainly with the Fuji Gfx 50 R with a Fuji 45mm lens and adaptor for Canon tilt-shift lenses. I used Profoto B1 flashes with a beauty dish and silver umbrellas on this shoot. Camranger is always my main tool to adjust and stylise the image before I press the shutter. I really love the 4×5 proportions, and I always try to avoid the over wide lenses as I strongly believe that in every architectural photo you should leave some question marks, in order to give to the viewer the desire to visit the actual place,” explains Panayis.

Many thank you’s to Panayis for submitting this project in and letting us know all of the nitty gritty details!

See more of Panayis’ work at  panayischrysovergis.com and on Instagram @Panayis_spaces

If you have a project you’d like to be considered for Project of the Week, you can submit it here.