Photographing Custom Soft Furnishings for United Phoenix Designs
Interior design photography doesn't always begin with a finished room.
Sometimes the story is in the work that goes into creating it.
I spent the day with Nancy Vegel of United Phoenix Designs in Southlake, Texas, photographing the custom soft furnishings she creates for interior designers throughout North Texas. From drapery and Roman shades to pillows, bedding, and other custom textile pieces, Nancy's work is the kind of craftsmanship that quietly becomes part of the finished spaces we photograph.
This session was about giving that craftsmanship photographs of its own.
Project Snapshot
Client
United Phoenix Designs
Location
Southlake, Texas
Year Photographed
2023
Project Type
Commercial Photography
Specialty
Custom Soft Furnishings
Photography Focus
Custom drapery, Roman shades, bedding, pillows, textile details, and portraits
Photography
Stacy Markow Photography
The Craft Behind a Finished Interior
When we look at a beautifully finished interior, it's easy to focus on the room as a whole.
But every finished space is the result of many individual craftspeople contributing their expertise along the way.
United Phoenix Designs is part of that process.
Nancy creates and installs custom soft furnishings for interior design firms across North Texas. Her work includes drapery panels, Roman shades, pillows, shams, bedding, bedskirts, and other custom textile pieces, all created to become part of a designer's larger vision for a space.
Spending the day photographing her work gave me an opportunity to focus on those individual pieces rather than the completed room around them.
Photographing the Details
The purpose of the session was to create imagery Nancy could use across her website and portfolio to show both the range and quality of her work.
That meant approaching the photography differently than I would a traditional interior design project.
Instead of asking how one room connects visually to another, I was looking more closely at construction, fabric, pattern, proportion, and finish.
A wider photograph might establish how a custom window treatment functions within a room, while a closer composition can show the pleating, trim, stitching, fabric, or other details that reveal the craftsmanship behind it.
Both perspectives matter.
One shows the finished result. The other shows what makes that result special.
Photographing the People Behind the Work
We also created portraits of Nancy as part of the session.
For a business built around custom work, showing the person behind that work adds another layer to the visual story.
Clients aren't simply purchasing a finished textile. They're working with someone who understands how fabric behaves, how a treatment needs to function, how it should be constructed, and how all of those decisions fit within the designer's larger vision.
Including Nancy in the photography helped connect the finished pieces back to the person and expertise behind them.
An Important Part of the Design Industry
One of my favorite parts of photographing projects within the design industry is seeing how many people contribute to a finished space.
Interior designers and architects may establish the larger creative vision, but bringing that vision to life requires an entire network of builders, fabricators, installers, artisans, manufacturers, and craftspeople.
Custom soft furnishings are one small piece of that much larger process.
Photographing United Phoenix Designs was an opportunity to document that piece on its own and create a collection of images that Nancy could use to show prospective clients not only what she makes, but the level of care and craftsmanship behind it.
Project Gallery
Explore more photographs from my session with United Phoenix Designs below.
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Recent projects, behind-the-scenes moments, and a closer look at the spaces, details, and designers I have the opportunity to photograph.
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