Commercial Interior Photography in Brossard – Activate Games for PCL Construction

I was commissioned by PCL Construction to photograph the interior of Activate Jeux Immersifs in Brossard, Quebec, capturing the finished space and the distinctive environment created for its interactive games.

Activate is an immersive entertainment concept built around interactive rooms where visitors take on physical and mental challenges. The spaces are designed to be engaging and dynamic, combining technology, lighting and carefully considered interiors to create a different experience in each room.

Photographing a venue like this presents an interesting challenge: the lighting that makes the experience exciting for visitors can make it difficult to photograph.

Photographing an immersive space in low light

The main challenge of this assignment was the low-light environment. Much of the interior relied on very subdued lighting with illuminated features to establish the atmosphere, rather than the bright, even illumination you might find in a conventional commercial interior.

For architectural and interior photography, light is one of the most important tools available. It reveals the shape of a space, defines materials and surfaces, and helps communicate the relationship between different elements of a design. In a low-light environment, capturing those details while retaining the atmosphere of the space requires careful technical decisions.

The aim was to produce clear, professional photographs that showed the layout, design and character of the venue without losing the distinctive lighting that makes it an immersive experience. Simply brightening everything would have risked flattening the atmosphere and losing the contrast between the darker areas and the illuminated features.

Working in these conditions means balancing exposure, managing contrast and paying close attention to how different light sources affect the final image. The result needs to work both as a record of the completed interior and as a visual representation of the experience the space was designed to deliver.

Construction photography and completed projects

For PCL Construction, having professional photographs of the finished venue provides a record of the completed project, and these are useful for project portfolios, company websites, marketing materials, presentations and future business development.

So yes, construction photography is not limited to documenting a building as it takes shape. Photographing the finished project is also an opportunity to show the outcome of the work: how the space functions, how the design comes together and how the completed environment looks in practice.

This assignment was a good example of the variety involved in commercial and architectural photography. Every space presents its own conditions, and the approach needs to adapt to the architecture, the lighting and the purpose of the images.