Love thyself

Look closely.

Shot this home in Truckee. I love June, and the weather and all, but man it would be nice if it got darker a little bit earlier. Makes getting those light-just-right Architectural Digest shots 10 times easier.

I also think it's about time for me to upgrade my little speedlights into something a bit more robust. They're nice for traveling light and doing impromptu people shots, but they just don't cut it for lighting these big interior spaces at f8-f14 and ISO 100. Don't want to break the bank but I hear iffy things about Alien Bees having a slight colorcast - anyone have any ideas on that one?

Had to shoot some exteriors yesterday. Once again daylight got the better of these.

I really wanted to post up a shot from the golf course and make a Caddyshack reference, but my knife-edged wit seems to be getting a little dull lately. Uh oh. Keep an eye open for an actual real estate section on the site coming soon. I think it's about the time where I have 12-16 portfolio-quality images, so that should be good. To finally be able to show people something and not just rely on word of mouth, while it is wonderful and has done tons for me, I need to crank it up a bit!

Go Do

My Holga (which gave up it's ghost not too long ago), digital pinhole (hole drilled in lens cap), expired 35mm film, a 5d and a 1d Mark III. Quite the combination, spanning everything from medium format to a camera-shaped computer. And then I put some old dirty viewfinders over some of them, I don't really know why, I liked it at the time but maybe I don't like it anymore. Eleven exposures in all. I'm still not sure.

I don't know how I go from shooting interiors to this stuff, it's like a photographic schizophrenia. Being wary of not falling into a generalist trap. Two things at once isnt bad, right? Been there, not pleasant. But I need to keep the artsy side fresh, since I don't have anything with me except some cameras. And since photoshopping is just not nearly as fun as making a mess, staining carpets with oil paint, making loud noises with obnoxious saws and hammers, and irritating people around you as you make some art, it's only a temporary stand in until I find a place I can do that again.

Or someone who wants to let me do that...any takers?

In a galaxy not so far away...

I came home from dinner last night at about 11:00, ready to pass out from exhaustion and reeling from the effects of two beers (har har). I parked my car and looked up through sleepy eyelids, and this had to be done. Made a ruckus, grabbed the camera, fisheye, tripod and remote, and set off into the darkest night ever. My favorite part of this was that it was all visible to the naked eye. I took three shots, and came home with this:

 

No bears, or bear tracks, or anything, for that matter. It was lingering in thte back of my head the entire time. But I'm still here. Walked back in silence, and attempted to go to sleep. It didn't work, for whatever reason, even after my wonderful rotisserie chicken of a four hour sleep the previous night.

Eh, worth it though.

Another busy week

Been busy all week, though I don't mind it. Today's the first day off in some time, so I figured I'd pause to update the site a little bit. The first shot is from a home in Truckee. I had to flex the photoshop muscles on this one. It was tricky, trying to find a central spot but still leave enough detail in the walls behind me to make sure that I could clone and mask appropriately to hide the camera and tripod. Once again, this is me trying to get people to think "what the..." with everything I do. Lots of the same pictures out there, but since I just told you all of my secrets, I guess the cat is out of the bag. Or maybe this was a trend a year, or a few years ago, and I'm just not even close to being original. Do what you like, I say.

Refrigerator detail -

Second house here is from another home in rural Truckee. This was one of my favorites. A nice, full house with plenty of details and beautiful design to soak in. Right on a golf course too, if that's your thing. Complete with game rooms, multiple fireplaces, and the all-important wine room/cellar.

Lastly is a neat little condo right in the village at Northstar-at-Tahoe, which is without a doubt a great location for a condo of this size. Nice and cozy, and right in the middle of everything.

Things I love

Let's start with this first picture. The kitchen is downright gorgeous and that spacious living room with the big 'ol fireplace just radiates awesome. The kitchen here had some awesome geometry and flow to it, as well as some very neat appliances and fixtures. Well lit, lots of natural light and good colors. This might have been my favorite downstairs area that I've shot yet. It was tricky however - I was looking to use flashes but the ceiling was a light yellow color, and the sunlight and overhead incandescants were already wreaking havoc on my white balance. I'm happy with the way it turned out however.

Next up is a sort-of non-traditional (whew hyphens!) real estate shot. I'm sure it will divide people; however in this detail shot I think that the out-of-focus reflections add a touch of warmth and familiarity. Not so sterile, as most real estate photography is, but almost believable and approachable. And let's not forget the simple fact that it's a wine/liquor closet. Who's going to be looking in the thing at 11pm with perfect vision anyway?

(...Hey, if this photography thing kicks the bucket, there's always stand up...)

Downhill mountain biking around Lake Tahoe

Had a fun shoot today. Got to carry a 30 pound camera bag and two lightstands about a mile up into the woods of Tahoe! Lots of good news. I got some great shots and I didn't get eaten by a bear, and I finally got back into the sports shooting groove. It's fun to shoot things that move. These were for my winter-time endeavor, www.newgravityimaging.com - I'm trying to branch that one into summer sports as well, so let the early-season portfolio building begin.

Sorry that this last one is huge - I don't think my normal web resolution does it justice, so I bumped it up for you.

Some artsy things you may or may not like

I like them, however. And this site is about me, damnit! I've been playing with a new camera that I may have just fallen in love with. I take it out all the time. I'm sure this will wear out, but in the interim, I'm thouroughly enjoying it and catching some things that I usually wouldn't. I'm big on intention - not too much of a snapshot fan, and don't go out with a picture just for the sake of taking pictures to dump onto the already-flooded internet.

What a self-loathing post. Yikes.

More realty shoots!

Been busy these last few days, here is another house that I shot - a very funky little condo at Northstar. I guess this is one of those love it or hate it things, with the bold primary colors everywhere. I usually would never use a fisheye for real estate but there were a few shots that I used it in this house, like of the bear on the couch. I also used it to show off the spiral staircase - I thought it added to the 'fun-factor' that they had going on here, though I was careful not to overdo it  - I think only about 5 of the finaly 40 were fishy.

Northstar really really real estate!

I've been working on real estate shoots at Northstar-at-Tahoe these last couple of days.

I am not the biggest fan of HDR (High dynamic range) photography, but in certain places it has its uses, such as real estate, in order to make something look as life-like as possible. Here I used a combination of off-camera flash and multiple exposures. I was originally going to try and use flashes only, but it killed the flow of the light throughout the house and just did not look as good. You can still see places where I used flash instead of HDR, for example, in the photo of the pullman-style beds. That is entirely lit with flash with CTO gels to warm up the light a bit.

I move in the 1st of June.

Now I'm just confusing dreams with reality. Har har har.

A shot from my time in Hollywood/Santa Monica

Here's one that I snapped while down in Los Angeles. Really quite a bit different than Tahoe in every way. The traffic is unbelievable, and I've never seen such a huge amount of people/cars/buildings/roads/everything. Really quite overwhelming coming from my town of one-thousand and change, where you can see the milky way at night without even trying and I complain about sitting behind one car on my 30 second drive to the grocery store.

This kid was not too thrilled with the ocean about to swipe him away. It made the Atlantic look like a goldfish pond. I almost got taken out a few times, myself, which would not have been good. Mighty strong, the Pacific is. This is at 4/10ths of a second hand-held, with god knows how many filters stacked to block enough light to let me shoot at f/8 iso 200 in broad California sun.