Tigertail Ridge, Brentwood: Architectural Interiors With Susan Jay Design

A few weeks ago, I wrapped a great project with the renowned Susan Jay Design in Los Angeles. On a ridge in Brentwood, with views overlooking Los Angeles' famous Getty Museum and Century City, this location was truly a stunner. Expansive views over all of LA, coupled with a fun yet restrained interior made this one of my favorite shoots of the year, despite the many challenges we faced. The home featured plenty of interesting architecture and angles, and while it is quite a sight for the eye, it can be particularly difficult to photograph. Faced with tight quarters and big windows which required a lot of light, we took nearly 12 hours to create just as many images.

Waiting for the right time of day is crucial - as fighting the sun through those big windows is just asking for trouble. We wanted the interior to appear soft, natural, and livable, so time of day was crucial to avoid harsh light and shadows interfering with our own light.

As has been repeated ad nauseum thorughout history, architectural photography is 90% moving furniture and 10% photography - and we did plenty of moving furniture on this shoot. Endless amounts of books were moved, couches tweaked, chairs tweaked, tables pulled out, and put back in - all to try and tame the color and shape that were present everywhere. With big windows comes busy backgrounds, and making everything work together seamlessly takes a bit of patience (with some good humor thrown in, of course).

This mid-century gem was a real treat to photograph, and added a few nice shots to my portfolio. With interesting lines, incredible furnishings and one of the best views in LA, there was no going wrong with this location.

Photographing a Modern Office Interior in Orange County: Ferm Design Concepts

Back in October, I had the pleasure of working with one of my favorite clients, Kelly Ferm of Ferm Design Concepts and 707 Circle Lane to photograph an office interior she designed for local Orange County startup InsuranceOnline.com. Shot over the course of just a few hours - we had to be quick in order to not interfere with the day-to-day operations of the business, which was full of workers running around and getting things done! 

The waiting room, below, lit with hot and strobe light brought out the softness in the wood and smoothly curved white armchairs. By adding shadow and highlight we were able to add plenty of depth and interest in a room lit with only overhead can fluorescents for practicals. I strive to take places like this - with interesting interior design, yet fairly standard overhead office lighting - and transform them into a soft, inviting, and flattering image that presents my clients' work better than any snapshot could.

Up next, a simple conference room and break room - but bringing softness and richness to the design is a bit tricky when dealing with just ovehead fluoros. The camera doesn't quite see what the eye does, so plenty of massaging with light is necessary. Those conference room windows were heavily tinted blue, and required some serious gelling of the lights to make it all match. 

And lastly, my favorite shot from the day, and a very impromptu one at that, shot as most of the workers were at lunch. I saw this angle upon walking in and wanted to shoot it, but pulling it off would be tough. We only had about 20 minutes or so to clean, organize, stage, and light the space, which of course was tricky. Working with an assistant, we hid everything we could, arrange the desks and computers as best as possible, had a few workers stand in for models to give some life and activity, threw a couple lights up, mostly in a seat-of-the-pants fashion, and let it ride. What resulted is one of my favorite shots in recent memory. Even a simple office interior can photograph incredibly well if the architecture lends itself to it. 

And this shot, as it turns out, lent itself to a very nice black and white conversion, which I find quite reminiscent of a few shots of Julius Shulman's. A classic, contrasty one point perspective which draws the eye in and lets you linger. Thanks, Kelly, for the great subject and chance to make some killer photos!

You'll have to excuse my lack of blogging lately, as I have been busier than ever and all over the west coast photographing (nearly 4,000 miles driven in the last two months alone) a number of different projects. Expect a lot more posts as this cools down and the holidays come up.

How To Photograph Real Estate, Interiors, And Architecture: Where Art Meets Architecture

After over six months in production, I am happy to announce that my tutorial 'Where Art Meets Architecture: How To Photograph Real Estate, Architecture, and Interiors' is finally available! I partnered up with Fstoppers.com to create a comprehensive eight-hour tutorial which covers so many facets of architectural and interior shooting.  I wanted to give my readers and followers the first chance to purchase the tutorial, which is available for $299 (click here), before it goes open to the public, pending Fstoppers.com's migration to a new server this week.

I will explain each and every technique that I use to produce my photographs. The full photography tutorial is broken down into three chapters, each covering the tools necessary to succeed in the different niche markets within the field of interior photography. So no matter if you are an experienced photographer or have never taken your camera out of auto mode, I'll take you from shooting basic bedrooms all the way through my complicated light-painted exteriors. 

We've created a ten-minute trailer for the tutorial, which breaks down everything inside it and gives a brief look into my workflow, which can be seen here:

Here's what I cover throughout the tutorial:

Real Estate Photography: In the Real Estate section, I take the time to teach you everything you need to know about this genre so you can kick start your career and start producing images for real estate agents, listing agents, and general property management. All of the basics will be covered in this chapter including:

• How to get started with minimal gear
• How to bounce flash effectively
• Using natural light to your advantage
• Properly composing your frame
• Choosing the correct focal length
• How to retain exterior window views
• Two, three, and four light setups
• Correcting pincushion and barrel distortion
• Fixing converging lines in Photoshop
• Creating a final image completely in camera

 
In addition to getting started, I'll also talk candidly about how I have found success in the real estate market, and how you too can build a money making business shooting properties for sale.

Architecture and Interior Photography: This chapter focuses on how to create photographs for higher paying clients like architects, home builders, interior designers, and magazine editorials. With the ground work already laid down, I will focus on streamlining your workflow and pushing your images into actual works of art. While on location at an actual architect’s personal home, I'll take you step-by-step through eight flagship images from initial capture all the way through the final photoshop editing process. We have also included a full Photoshop PSD file of a twilight exterior images so you can follow along as we go through photoshop.

• Twilight Exterior Technique
• Advanced light painting and compositing
• Tethering to an ipad/iphone
• Using scrims  and flags to control reflections/specular highlights
• The “Moody Interior Twilight Shot”
• Faking warm sunlight
• Staging furniture for strong compositions

Commercial and Advertising Photography: In this final section, I'll take you on the set of two commercial spaces and demonstrate how to produce perfect images for restaurants, hotels, wedding venues, resorts, and other commercial clients. Emphasis will be placed on meeting your clients needs and lighting images according to the use of the space.

• Creating twilight images while a restaurant is open for business
• Incorporating people into your photography
• Lighting multi room locations
• Replacing details in Photoshop
• Lighting large banquet halls
• How to create an inviting atmosphere

 
In addition, I also touch on commercial project pricing, licensing, and dealing with clients in a way that keeps everyone happy and creative energy high.

If you are interested in purchasing the DVD, you can click here, which will take you to our e-junkie store, where it is available for $299, which in my opinion is a great value. I have watched it a few times and every time I watch it I think about what a steal it is! It took me years to figure all of this out and to hone my craft to the point that its at today. Unfortunately, my partner, Fstoppers.com has been absolutely slammed with traffic from a few of our posts that went viral, which we are working on getting fixed right now, and I am releasing this to just my loyal followers until it goes public at the end of the week.

I hope you like what you see - we've gotten a handful of glowingly positive reviews from watchers, which is great to see after all of the work that went into it. If you have any questions at all, feel free to shoot me an email or reply to this post and I'll get back to you!

Belgian Country Style Interior And Architecture in Pacific Palisades, CA

About a month ago we wrapped up photographing an amazing home in Pacific Palisades, one of Los Angeles' hidden and lesser-known neighborhoods. This home was all about the stories: from the reclaimed wood in the ceilings and floors, to the tiles that were imported from France and originally made in the 15th century, the house just exuded an incredible charm everywhere you looked. 

Shot over the course of two days, we created a series of about 10 staged and lit photographs and a number of portraits of the builder. This was without question one of my favorite homes that I've ever photographed - wherever you looked there was something worth shooting. There was no expense spared, and the home was an example of how incredible something can be when no corners are cut. 

The kitchen, designed and built by Bulthaup, is simply magnificent. The exposed wooden trusses in the ceiling are reclaimed and hundreds of years old, and juxtaposed with the modern and sleek lines create for a strikingly symmetric yet inviting space. Capturing this was tricky, as the powder-coated beam in the center of the home proved tricky to work around. However, that beam itself is a work of art - as it is this one column that supports the weight of the entire home. The entire downstairs is an open layout and flows seamlessly from space to space, something that's tricky to capture. In order to pull it off, we had to compose and light very carefully.

I may sound like a broken record here, but we were just awed by this home. The staircase, seen below, was entirely floating and not attached to any wall sans the outer radius. It was quite an engineering feat to pull off- and we worked hard to capture both the engineering and mood of this area. My stylist, Dana, who will be getting her own write up soon, stood in as a model for us, too.

The upstairs was quaint yet airy and light. Vaulted ceilings and an indoor-outdoor bedroom let the outside in effortlessly, though capturing it proved difficult. With such a difference in exposure between the ambient exterior light and interior light level, we had to find a way to balance both yet attain a natural and airy feel. With nowhere outside to put lights, I opted to composite this photograph which resulted in the perfect feel.

Lastly, a killer basement theatre was installed with - yet - again - reclaimed wood and tile throughout. Everywhere you turn in this house there's a story, from centuries-old reclaimed wood to tiles dating from the Napoleonic era of France, it was a pleasure to be allowed into this home for as long as we were and to take our time capturing all of the details and spaces throughout.

We've submitted this project to a number of shelter magazines, so hopefully in the coming months we'll have a few nice tearsheets to share. Till then...fingers crossed!

Photographing The Robb Report 2013 Ultimate Home

About a year ago, I was contacted by a few potential clients who wanted to get together and discuss the possibility of shooting a home still under construction. Of course - it sounded like any run of the mill project and the meeting would be a simple brainstorming session of ideas, finding out what angles and features to shoot, and figuring out the optimal time of day(s) to shoot the home. 

I was incredibly surprised when I drove up to the location and first laid my eyes on the home that we would be shooting. A 26,000 square foot, completely custom Italian/Tuscan villa that sat on top of its own private hill with gated access points and what could best be described as castle walls all around. Simply incredible! I've seent a lot of homes and it takes quite a bit to get a big reaction out of me, but this was unlike anything I'd ever seen. The detail and finish work were exquisite. For example, each of the coppi tiles on the roof were salvaged from Italy, and they were hand made hundreds of years ago by artisans who formed them by pressing them over their legs. 

No expense was spared inside, either. The kitchen featured a custom La Cornue range, and the home sported an 8,000 square foot subterranean garage to keep the homeowner's collection in order. Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Teslas, Bentleys, the list goes on, it was all here. There were even a few lifts so that the owner could work on his own cars if he desired. 

Many of the furnishings and finishings were imported from Europe by the owners when they went on shopping trips, and original old-world artwork adorned the walls. A custom movie theatre with a glass floor looking onto the garage below was a rather interesting touch, as was a spiral staircase spanning three floors with an absolutely incredible handcrafted candelebra at the top. I could sit here for days typing out the things about this house that blew me away, but I'll let you take a look for yourself (above and below).

Photoragraphing this place was a pretty daunting challenge. The dark ceilings and walls sucked up a lot of light, and in order to keep things looking natural, a lot of exposure blending and clever (to me, at least) lighting tricks were employed. I didn't want to overlight the place or give it a sort of casino vibe, so I scaled back some of my usual lighting and retouching processes. There were, however, a few rooms that called for that dramatic lit look, such as the theatre and bar at the end of the garage. 

I think knowing when to light and embellish a space and when to hold back and let it speak for itself is such an important part of architectural photography - there's gotta be a rhyme and reason for doing something, though. If a kitchen has a really great ambient feel with big windows and white surfaces, why kill that mood to make it look like a casino? On the other side of the coin, however, when we're shooting a dark room with lots of mood, why not add some light to bring out the sexiness and feel? It's all subjective, of course, but making the space look as good as it can is what I try to do in every situation. If it looks best light and airy, keep it light and airy, and if it needs some mood, light away! Of course, there are many interiors where there needs to be a happy medium between natural light and artificial light. I'm sure you can tell which photos employed almost all natural light, which employed lots of artificial light, and which were a mixture of both.

When all was said and done, I delivered roughly 50 images of the home shot over the course of three days. The planning aspect of a shoot of this scale can't really be underestimated - early mornings, late nights, and plenty of negotiating 'best times' with the homeowner, clients, and weather made sure that I had my work cut out for me.

If you are interested in reading further about the home or seeing more images of the home, be sure to pick up an April 2013 issue of Robb Report.

Traditional Mediterranean Orange County Home

Just wrapped up this shoot on an impeccably staged Orange County home - if only every shoot of mine was staged so well! We did a lot of lighting here to brighten up the interiors and really show off the design inside. Most shots had a 640ws light out the window shot through an umbrella, grid, or reflector to add some splotchy Sunday-morning light to give a bright and airy feel. Most of these shots are simply all done in-camera with slight camera ACR raw tweaks to contrast and saturation. Sometimes instead of crazy composites, everything can be done in camera with some carefully thought-out lighting and patience. While there are ups and downs to both approaches, there's definitely something special about getting everything perfect in the camera. On the other hand, though...sometimes seeing the finished product after a full day's effort in Photoshop is awesome, too!

Mpkelley.com Fine Art and Architectural Photography Featured on PurePhoto.com

I recently had the pleasure of being invited to share my work at PurePhoto.com, a website that specializes in providing interior designers, architecture professionals, and hospitality professionals with high-end fine art photography for use in their projects. I'm very excited about this develoment - it will be fantastic to have my fine art work used by architects and designers. Who knows, maybe one day I'll be shooting a place with my artwork on the wall! You can check it out by clicking here. While PurePhoto specializes in selling to the aformentioned clients, it's also easy to purchase any print on the website on a one-off basis, if you feel so compelled (wink!). In addition to some of my architecture work in Iceland, there are a number of my ambient and aviation-based images available to view.