Wednesday, July 8. 20092009.06.12: Residential architecture - 9134 Valleyview Drive
Lesa Patermann, a realtor I photographed last year, passed my name along to her colleague Jason Hafso. Jason had an interesting home he was entrusted to sell - it was a home built in the '50's and then redeveloped by Katherine Ball as her family's primary residence. Jason was in a hurry to get these photos shot because he was hoping to have his listing go live within a few days. My preferred medium for shooting interiors is 4x5 film and turn around for colour film is about a week to ten days so I brought along the Nikon D3 and shot some temporary photos that Jason could use in the listing before the film was scanned. We did a walk through the evening before to get a feel for the light in each room and to develop a schedule for the best times to shoot each room. Most rooms would be shot best with direct sunlight entering the windows, some were best shot around dusk, and some were not affected by outdoor ambient light and these could be shot after sun down or whenever there was a free moment between shots with more finicky lighting.
From the moment I realized how serious he was about getting good architectural photos done for this listing I had high expectations for both the property and for this realtor. Jason didn't disappoint me. Jason is one of the most motivated and hardworking realtors that I have met and in spite of the realization that multimillion dollar homes like these are much more involved listings than homes appealing to first time home buyers and the fact that listings like these scare most realtors (perhaps including Jason), I was pleased to see that he was going to do his absolute best to make sure that this listing was done right and would really stand out amongst a surprisingly large number of multi-million dollar homes listed in Edmonton. All photos shot with the Horseman LE and the Calumet Caltar-N II/Rodenstock APO Grandagon 75/4.5 in a Copal #0 on Fuji Pro-S 160, metered to ISO 100, and scanned with the Microtek Artixscan M1. Jason, and the designer her family were instrumental in creating these photos. Thank you.   This kitchen is among the most beautiful kitchens I have seen in this city. Thin granite countertops (I think), uniquely-shaped centre bay sink, and what I believe is a custom face for the refrigerator to allow it to better match the rest of the kitchen's colour scheme. Shot around 5pm, all existing light and with lights in the hallway turned on.  The living room. It's a great meeting space but I experienced a lot of difficulty getting my shot in this room because of deep the room was thus creating a lot of natural light fall off from the window to the end of the room furthest from the window. I wanted to retain natural light from the outside but I still wanted the viewer to have a feel of what the interior lighting was like. I ended up using the Bowens Explorer and two heads with dish reflectors to pump light into the wall furthest from the window that's right beside the camera. If I recall correctly, the wall/fireplace area was built out of tindelstone or a similar stone that had a warm tone to it that would help the daylight balanced flash match the daylight-washed tungsten interior light of the room.  We struggled with a large and stubborn cloud that wouldn't go away for almost an hour before capturing this shot. During this part of the day I wish I had two cameras - one that I could set up in preparation for this shot and another that I could continue shooting the rest of the home with. I used some tilt movement to shallow the depth of field. I wanted to showcase the faucet and the edge of the bath tub while giving the viewer a sense of the light that enters the master bedroom bathroom around this time. The blinds are closed slightly and I believe that most of what you see of the outside is actually a reflection off the top surfaces of the blinds. This bathroom is easily the most beautiful bathroom I have ever seen.  The rest of the master bedroom ensuite bathroom.  The master bedroom. A lot of the home's furniture and accents are inspired by South American designs from the designer's term in South America. Just left of this frame is a cozy nook in the wall.  The balcony off the hallway leading to the master bedroom. Balconies are often awkward areas to shoot and this was no exception. Large evergreens peeked into the frame and the balcony wasn't as deep as I'd like it to be for setting up my camera and the patio door opening to the balcony didn't open the way I needed it to be ideal for setting up the camera but it worked out in the end. Rather than a "this house has a balcony" type photo, I wanted the viewer to feel as though they were lounging on the balcony on a lazy summer afternoon.  I'm still not as good at shooting exteriors as I would like to but this back yard night scene is one of my favourites from the shoot. The exposure time at F/16 and ISO 100 was approximately one minute. I wanted just a bit of light in the sky and I wanted the viewer to imagine how cool it woudl be to host a social gathering in this court yard. We lit some tea lights for the lanterns and turned on the little lights in the trees. Then we waited.  Katherine's office. Jason and I both loved the drafting table and felt that even though this was an office in the basement, it was characteristic and important to this home.  Rear exterior shot.  The stairs leading from the basement to the main floor. I used a combination of the Cokin graduated tobacco and graduated neutral density filter going from dark at the top to lighter at the bottom to help counter the brighter, cooler light at the top of the frame as it transitioned into the warmer, dimmer tungsten halogen light from the basement. Comments
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This looks like a 50's outdoor furnishings catalogue shot.
(That's a good thing.)
#1
Christina Ignacio-Deines
on
2009-08-10 13:27
(Reply)
(I meant the outdoor shot of the courtyard.)
#2
Christina Ignacio-Deines
on
2009-08-10 13:30
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