I was hired by the architects to photograph the project. There were a few interior photographs interior photographs on the shot list but the majority of the required images were exterior photographs exterior photographs.

The architect flew in from Texas for the shoot. We met him at the information desk at 10:00am and did a quick walk-through of the facility before beginning the photography.

We began the architectural photography architectural photography in the late morning with the sun shining through the canopy and striking the “Welcome Wall”. I did a variety of exterior photographs throughout the day, finishing the exterior photography well after sunset. At 11:00pm traffic had slowed so we did a couple of interior photographs of the nearly empty terminal building before the next plane arrived and the building filled with people. By midnight we were finished.

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Twilight photo shot 20 minutes after sunset

One of the first shots of the day. The sunlight through the canopy was very cyan.

I used six florescent fixtures with cool white tubes for fill.

While doing our walk-through prior to the interior photography of a soon-to-be finished project, my client and I were startled to find a body on the floor in a small office of an otherwise empty building. On closer inspection we realized that a painter was sleeping on the floor. Apparently he had come in very early to finish up a few things on the punch list and was just taking a short nap.

This photo was not used in the architect’s AIA awards submittal!

Unless you are terrified of flying, there is no reason that you should not offer aerial photography service to your clients.

When planning your aerial photo shoot you’ll need to make the decision between a fixed wing aircraft (plane) and a rotary wing aircraft (helicopter). Your budget may well make this decision for you since planes are much less expensive to rent than helicopters. My favorite plane for aerial photography is the Cessna 172. In southwestern Ontario and the U.S. Midwest I usually pay in the area of $150 per hour for the plane and pilot. The 172 has it’s wing over top of the cabin (a necessity!) and with the window fully opened (do not try shooting through the glass!) you have a fairly unobstructed view for shooting.

Since you will not get good photos shooting through glass, be sure that the window will open all of the way before you leave the ground. The Cessna has a bracket on the window that allows it to open only a couple of inches. Removing a small screw from the bracket will allow the window to open all the way, but this must be done before take-off. Be aware that the wing, wing strut and landing gear can all end up in the photo when using very wide lenses. Even though a plane cannot legally fly as low as a helicopter, with an experienced pilot this is a very good and safe way of shooting aerial photographs.

I love helicopters but I’m not a fan of  small 2-seat helicopters for aerial photography. These small machines are at their maximum capacity with 2 people on board and flying at maximum capacity leaves very little room for error. The larger 4-seat helicopters such as the Bell Jet Ranger or Robinson R44 are at approximately half capacity with two people on board. This provides surplus power making it much easier for your pilot to recover from problems or errors.

I usually have to pay at least $1200 per hour for one of these machines with pilot, but when shooting from the back seat of an R44 (or Jet Ranger) with the door removed and a good, experienced pilot at the controls, I can produce far more and better photos in much less time than is possible from a plane.

I recently did a two-hour shoot over the Detroit River from an R44. We had a long shot list of photos that needed to be done in full sun between 8:30am and 10:30am. To attempt this shoot from a plane would have required several days of morning photo-flights.

I like to bring two DSLR camera bodies; one with a super wide zoom and the other with a mid-range zoom. I use a polarizer on the mid-range zoom, a skylight filter on the super-wide and camera straps on both bodies. I almost never use long lenses when shooting from the air as movement and vibration are magnified by their use. Using two camera bodies avoids the possibility of dropping something in (or from) the aircraft while changing lenses. And airtime is expensive! You need to spend your time shooting, not changing lenses and digging through a camera bag.

There is a lot of planning that needs to go into an aerial photo-shoot; aircraft and pilot availability, site orientation relative to the sun, weather conditions and your equipment. Be sure to bring everything that you will need, but nothing more.

Don’t forget to check on conditions at the site you’ll be shooting. Make sure that the property is cleaned up. Do you want parking lots empty or filled with cars? Is there equipment or machinery on the property that should not be there? Any of these could cause an expensive re-shoot.

If you have properly planned your photo-flight you should have a good time and come back with some great photographs.  For me personally, few things are as much fun as hanging out of a helicopter taking photographs on a beautiful morning.

http://www.claytonstudio.com      Follow me on Twitter

Detroit River

Bob-Lo Island

Once the main business of our meeting had concluded the conversation turned to photography in general. We discussed the “old days” of film, Polaroid’s and C prints. The marketing director then handed me a large envelope containing several 8.5” x 11” ink jet prints that had been dropped off as samples by an aspiring architectural photographer. Each print had a single image surrounded by a large white border that contained the photographers name and contact information.

The overall design and look of the prints was very nice. Unfortunately for our young photographer, these prints will not be earning him any commissions from this architecture firm.

The photographs were of empty, crumbling industrial buildings. The extremely oversaturated colors and unnatural tones screamed HDR and looked like images from a photography students FLICKR page. Photomatix, anyone?

He may as well have shown a portfolio of food photographs! The first rule of marketing is to know your market. This architectural firm specializes is very clean, bright, modern educational facilities. Their advertising and marketing is directed toward and reflects their specialization. When hiring architects and interior designers, they look for people with education experience.

The samples left by our aspiring architectural photographer showed the marketing director that he did not understand her firm, her firm’s clients or their architectural photography needs. Before sending samples or showing a portfolio, it is imperative that an architectural photographer architectural photographer understands the needs of the potential client. Architectural Record and Architectural Digest contain much better samples of the type of work required by the majority of commercial architects and interior designers.

There is a place for very artsy, edgy photography, but it will not earn you many commissions from architectural firms.

This building is a switching station for a cellular phone company and will be filled with computers, batteries, power systems and other state-of-the-art equipment.

My client wanted interior photography of the space before the cellular service equipment was installed. They also wanted photographs of the very specialized mechanical work they had done, much of which was in the ceiling. The photos below show some of the sheet metal work and support hardware that will help provide electrical and communications wiring/cabling and also temperature and humidity controlled air.

Architectural photographers often use ladders, but this is the first time that I have used a 12’ step ladder to take photographs in a ceiling. Once the tripod was positioned on the suspended steel girders, I did a custom white balance for the florescent lighting and then did a bracketed set of exposures to capture highlight and shadow detail. The final images were produced by layer masking in Photoshop. This was not a typical interior photography shoot, but it was an interesting one.  http://www.claytonstudio.com       Follow me on Twitter

Architectural photographers must make the best of whatever situation they are faced with, and interior photographers are often faced with such situations. Rather than strip (Photoshop) a spring or summer photograph into the window, I decided to overexpose the outside view and give the room a light airy look. Soft fill light was provided by electronic flash bounced into two large (60”) white umbrellas.

When photographing any project, architectural and interior photographers must always use great care and try to be as unobtrusive as possible. This is especially true when working in an occupied private home. Due largely to the trust and rapport between the young family of six who live in this home and the interior designer, we were allowed complete access to the home and worked from 8:00am until 10:00pm for two days to complete eighteen interior photographs.

I arrived mid-morning at began shooting overall and detail photographs of the rear and south sides of the building as the sun moved slowly across the sky toward the front of the athletic center. As the sun began to set late in the day I set up my camera for the hero shot. With the camera facing southeast I framed the photo to show the main entrance and the steel clad front of the building receding off to camera right. A few short minutes after the sun dropped below the horizon the southwestern sky began to glow and was reflected beautifully across the front of the building by the steel siding. I did a bracketed set of exposures as the light levels dropped, and then called it a day. A very good day!

The interior photography of the new Black Box Studio at the Detroit Art School was abit of a challenge. To get the true feel of a black box studio I would have preferred to light the stage with a few spot lights and then let the light fallaway, leaving the rest of the room in complete darkness; just a stage sittingin a black void.

However, this photograph was done for the architects and it was important to them that the entire space and all of the details and features be visible. Producing photographs that are not only esthetically pleasing but also show all of the details that are important to the designers is one of the biggest challenges faced by architectural photographers and interior photographers.

Our lighting consisted of several tungsten spot lights (fresnel and open faced) at heights of 12 to 15 feet. All light were placed at camera left. A black space like this really sucks up the light, so our exposures were much longer than we would use for a more typical interior space.

When you compare the photo of the new Black Box Studio with the black box studio at the old school, it’s easy to see why the students love their new school.

Looking through one of my old portfolios and I came across a series of photographs that I thought would make an interesting post for this blog, even though it is not an architectural photography post. As most photographers who have been in business for over 30 years, I have done a great variety of work throughout my career.

In the fall of 1999 I was hired to produce a series of five beverage photographs for Courvoisier Cognac’s Millennium promotion. Studies showed that the typical cognac drinker was a 50+ white male and Courvoisier wanted to increase their market share with the younger crowd. I was given the drink recipes and asked to produce a stylish, colorful image of each drink.

I spent two days experimenting with different looks before I came up with the green drink with the yellow background. That gave me the look I was after and the other drinks were photographed in a similar style. Two identical glasses were used for each photograph. One glass was placed upside down on a stand and the other glass was placed right side up on the base of the upside down glass. A large sheet of white plexiglass was placed 3 feet behind the glasses and a large piece of black velvet cloth was placed between the glasses and the plexiglass. The 4x5 camera was set up, the drink was poured and the studio lights were turned off. The shutter was opened and the exposures were made for the glass and the liquid. Then the shutter was closed and the lights turned back on. I removed the black velvet, backlit the plexiglas with lights covered with colored gels, cocked the shutter, turned the lights off and made the exposures for the background. All of the images were captured on 4x5 transparency film (Fuji Velvia) and there was no retouching or digital manipulation of any kind.

As an architectural photographer, I love the flexibility and control that we now have with digital capture. But there is something very rewarding about producing a complex image on a sheet of film with no retouching.