Jacknife Interiors Photography

From the moment I saw mockup photos, I was excited to photograph this project. Jacknife is a new sushi restaurant in Madison featuring delicious and quick rolls, bowls, and more. The interiors feature unique artwork, graphics, and bold colors to draw the eye to the many creative design elements used within the space. I was hired to photograph the interiors by one of my favorite clients, Iconica, who did the buildout of the space for the restaurant owners (who also own the restaurant RED). The results are a beautiful, open space with natural light and room for guests to enjoy good food and good conversation.

Take a look below at the finished images we created, as well as some behind-the-scenes looks at production and photo retouching.

Editing workflow time-lapse

The video below is a screen capture of the editing process for one of the dining room images, sped up to see the full process in a short period of time. If you’re unsure what goes into creating beautiful and emotive architectural photography, this should help shine some light on the extensive work we photographers pour into our work.

Architectural photography is a specialized genre of photography. You deal with difficult lighting situations, difficult spaces, color casts from many different light sources shining through a space, and cleaning and staging every aspect shown in an image. Architectural photographers use specialized equipment like shift lenses for perspective control, polarizers to help reduce glare on floors/counters/walls, and a tethering system so there is minimal touching of the camera. Since we are often blending many images together to get better lightning dynamics and color accuracy in a single, retouched image, it’s imperative that we shoot from a tripod and keep the camera absent of movement so our layers align properly. This is the case for everything in the camera’s frame, as well.

Move the sliders back and forth on the below images to see what they looked like out of camera, compared to the retouched images delivered to the client. Distracting elements were removed, color casts neutralized, local contrast improved, all with the purpose to draw your eye to the elements we want to feature. This shows the power and necessity of the retouching process.

360 immersive behind-the-scenes

Watch this 360, immersive VR video captured on-production for Iconica at Jacknife in downtown Madison, WI. This gives a nice look at the time needed to prep and stage spaces for architectural photography, as well as adding addition lighting, camera placement, and collaboration with on-site clients. I hope you enjoy this unique look into the production of architectural and interiors photography!

Interested in talking about photography or video of your own project? Let’s chat! I love getting to hear about the unique aspects of a space and their design intent, or the difficulties in construction and the solutions used to bring the design to life. We are all creators and, together, we can make a bigger impact on our communities and the folks who inhabit them.