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An interview with interior photographer Soren Kristensen on design, photography and finding the light.
Partnering with people and businesses that align with Peldon Rose’s commitment to quality helps to bring our spaces to life publicly. We recently caught up with interior photographer, Soren Kristensen, to talk about design, photography and finding the light.
What is your history with photography? Did anything draw you to the craft?
My first encounter of photography was as a young child in Denmark. My dad took photographs for fun and would use our bathroom in my childhood home as a makeshift darkroom to develop photographs. As we got older, my brother and I took interest and both took up the hobby, joining after-school photography clubs.
My professional pursuit of photography started with an apprenticeship, where I, over 4 and a half years, split time between working with a photographer and attending school. In those years I worked with a fashion photographer and a product photographer.
How long have you been a photographer? Have you always captured interior spaces?
After my studies, I started my own photography business. I worked on a variety of projects; like corporate headshots, interior design and occasionally in fashion, too. Nearly two decades later, I moved from Denmark to the UK, and travelled back and forth to existing projects I was working on back home, whilst making new connections here and beginning to establish a clientele. By chance, much of these ended up being in construction, architecture and interiors.
What do you enjoy most about photographing office interiors?
I love anything with clean, orderly lines. They’re satisfying to photograph. I think the minimalist Scandinavian aesthetic articulates this best. My wife is an academic professor of design, and one of her studies has shown that humans are more attracted to simple, smooth lines and designs than we are designs that are busy or intricate. Interestingly, this doesn’t transcend into my everyday life. For example, in my family home, my workstation often doubles up as a parking zone for my children’s scooters.
Most of all, I love embracing every new opportunity – for me it’s an opportunity to learn, explore and grow into new areas of my field.
How do you feel about capturing people within a space?
I love capturing people using a space that was made for them. Meeting the clients is equally valuable, as it helps me to understand the story behind the space, the design and the purpose behind it.
People help a space to come alive, to make sense. The conversations I have with designers are the key to finding the golden thread behind a space, alongside finessing the best angles to use and discovering the details to capture to communicate that story through my work.
What are some of the biggest changes to office interiors that you've seen in recent years?
On the whole, I’d say there’s a greater sense of purpose to offices than there once was. People want to socialise and collaborate with their team in a conducive setting, and work from home when convenient. I’ve also seen more comfortable and residential style designs grow popular in the past decade. Various styles can come and go, but user comfort has been growing in its centrality to office design. Whilst the pandemic was a catalyst for high growth, I think both of these have been on the rise for the last decade.
What's the best/most difficult part of the job?
The best part of the job is the challenge. In a way, each new space is a challenge. Photographing spaces and rooms, you know that there are ‘safe frames’ that will nearly guarantee you a great result. So, challenging yourself to try something new or capture a different angle is fun, and pushes you to develop your craft.
The most difficult part of photography is finding the light. Whether you’re photographing a product, a street, a person or an office; find the light and you’ll find your angle.
How is street photography different from photographing interior spaces?
Interior spaces have a set frame. This frame is all you have to work with – it’s unusual that you’ll have the opportunity to come back another day and try again when the light is better. By contrast, street photography – the art of photographing chance encounters within public spaces – allows you to find the perfect frame or spot, but the potential of how the frame takes is dependent on variables like time of day or year, subjects and objects within the frame, whether there’s any road traffic and more. With interior photography shoots, you have one place that you capture in one moment. With street photography, it’s all about being in the right place at the right time – or at least waiting long enough for the right moment to present itself.
Did children change/challenge/evolve the way you approach photography?
Maybe a little. My youngest has always been good with a camera, since she was very young. On holidays, I’ll hand her the camera and let her experiment and take pictures. Very quickly you learn how differently children view things to adults, which emphasises the importance of challenging yourself to think outside the box, try something new and be a bit more playful.
What projects do you hope to work on in the future?
Personally, I’d love to exhibit my work in galleries, or write a book, to get my work and my experiences in front of more people. Right now, much of my work involves photographing a space only once. I’d like to work on larger-scale projects where I can follow a transformation through from start to finish, getting to know the story behind it and helping to bring it to life.
Which of our spaces has been your favourite to photograph and why?
It’s so hard to pick just one, but over the years working with Peldon Rose I’ve photographed some superb spaces. Earlier this year I photographed Totaljobs and Brainlabs; I loved that their designs featured lots of green plants, and both took advantage of impressive views of the City. Another unforgettable shoot for me was at Mondrian Investment Partners. Every area of the space brought a new surprise – the staircase boasts a particular grandeur. It was a pleasure to photograph.
SOLK Photography’s founder Soren Kristensen brings life to spaces through his lens. Dive into the visual narratives below to explore a fusion of purposeful workplace design and captivating photography.
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