To-The-Trade Episode Summary
Regan Wood of Regan Wood Photography joined Laurie Laizure and Nile Johnson on To-The-Trade for Interior Design Community to talk about the part of the design business that designers pay for and understand least. Wood is a Brooklyn-based interiors, architecture and hospitality photographer. Photography is her second career, after a womenswear collection of her own and a first foray into dog photography, and she has been shooting interiors since 2013.
Wood describes photography as an opaque trade in the same way design is opaque. Everyone works alone, nobody compares notes at lunch, and most of the learning happens by trial and error. The friction point she hits most often is cost. Because everyone carries a camera in a pocket, professional rates surprise people, and newer designers frequently answer her quote with some version of “I did not realize, I am not quite ready.” Her position is that photography belongs inside the project cost from the start. IDC has covered the same question from the designer’s side in When to Invest in Professional Photography for Interior Design Projects.
Nile asks whether it makes sense to contact a photographer at the beginning of a long project so photography can be built into the proposal. Wood says yes, with a cushion, since an eighteen-month build will likely outlast any rate card. She also argues for treating it as a standing line item rather than a year-end scramble.
“Start to internalize it in your DNA that photographing this is as much a part of the project as hanging the window treatments.”
On permissions, Wood has signed an elaborate NDA for a project where the homeowner was royalty and would only allow the images to live in a physical portfolio the designer could carry into client meetings. Her advice is to put photography in the agreement up front and to temperature-check the homeowner early, so a no does not surface at the finish line of a year-and-a-half project. Nile describes how his firm handles it. Photography is never framed as a penalty. It shows up matter-of-factly in the investment guide, the welcome guide, the design guidelines and a separate permissions sheet, alongside suggestions for what the family can do around Philadelphia on shoot day and why an empty house is a safety matter as much as a workflow one.
Laurie raises the case of a designer who walked into High Point and found her own kitchen on a banner with the lighting retouched out and a vendor’s product swapped in. Wood walks through the law: the copyright holder can license an image, but commercial use requires a property release from the homeowner, not the designer, and the photographer usually has no way to reach the homeowner except through the designer. She calls the retouching bad form and puts consent first in every one of these situations. For the related question of who else gets to use your images, see Interior Design Photography Rights: Should You Share Images with Contractors?
Her most useful section for designers chasing press is also the most sobering. Magazines are flooded with submissions because nearly everyone now hires a professional. Editors say yes based on the project, the homeowner, the designer, the art and the styling. The feedback Wood hears most on a declined pitch is that the space does not feel lived in, or that it needs better art. She steers designers toward regional and niche titles, where serious local homeowners are actively looking for resources, and Laurie adds that digital placement stays searchable long after a print issue leaves the house.
“Who your photographer is doesn’t matter. It might get the email read more quickly, but they’re not going to say yes or no to a project based on the photographer.”
For designers who cannot hire a professional yet, Wood is specific. Shoot natural light only, with every lamp and overhead off. Skip the wide shots, which eat the day in styling and composition, and lean into tight vignettes: the texture of upholstery, the corner of a new drapery install. Then put yourself in the frame and let the project be the backdrop, which is the same argument Morgan Finley on Video, Authenticity, and Getting Clients to Trust You makes about video.
The pre-production advice is the practical core of the episode. Wood asks for phone scouting shots, has a creative call, and leaves the shot list to the designer, where her main contribution is reining it in, since a day yields roughly fifteen to twenty shots. On-site she tours with a compass open while her assistant marks which rooms face which direction, then reorders the list to shoot opposite the light. She watches the mix as the day goes so the take is not all horizontals and straight-ons, since verticals serve social and editorial alike. Plan for five times more florals and greenery than seems reasonable, and borrow art from a local gallery when the homeowner has not committed. Timing matters too, which IDC covered in Photography for Interior Design Projects: Optimal Timings for Capturing Your Work.
Wood also has hard rules for shared shoots, written after a stressful day with an architect and a designer both on set: only representatives from one party, and a shot list built collaboratively in advance. Architects want documentation of specific details. Designers want storytelling. That distinction drives her closing argument, that a real story about what it feels like to live in a finished project is what wins the next job, so designers should write that story down on their own portfolios and loosen their grip a little on set.
Timestamp Guide
00:24 – Meet Regan Wood, Brooklyn interiors and hospitality photographer
04:01 – Why cost is the first friction point for designers
04:55 – Bake photography into the project cost from day one
05:51 – The viral influencer video and the $300 photography clause
10:14 – DIY advice for designers who cannot hire a pro yet
12:31 – NDAs, permissions, and raising it with homeowners early
14:23 – How Nile builds photo permissions into his welcome guide
22:09 – A kitchen on a High Point banner: copyright and property releases
26:05 – The publishing secret: your photographer’s name will not get the yes
29:41 – Regional and niche titles, where serious homeowners are looking
38:45 – Shot list strategy, borrowed art, and five times more florals
42:46 – Storytelling beats documentation on set
54:52 – Calling your photographer at project kickoff
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