One of my goals when I started this year long project was to work on my architecture photography as well as my product photography. The last three week I have photographed two model homes built by Dalamar Homes. I had taken some head shot for this family owned company a few months ago and got in touch with them about taking photographs for my project.
I started by photographing their Natchez Pointe model home just south of Nashville. It is a really nice place with large rooms and is wonderfully decorated. I consider myself lucky t be able to practice my architecture photography in such a beautiful home.
I shot the upstairs rec-room, master bathroom, master bedroom, kitchen and living room. I posted all the photographs to a few architecture Facebook groups and got some great feedback. The biggest things they said was about the photographs was that some were little heavy handed with the flash. Also, they had a few composition concerns with the rec-room and kitchen photographs.
I had intended on shooting a twilight exterior of the same home but was not able to because of a rain storm.
For the second week I photographed at the Hendersonville model home. Also, a great space! I really wanted to work with the existing window light and try to fill in the shadows with my flash. To make a more natural look to the lighting. Also, the house was so well decorated I began shooting a lot of the decorations as interior design style shots. I felt I was really able to balance the ambient light and fill flash better this time. I tried to have the available ambient light appear to be the key light and fill in shadows my flash. This made for some great natural looking lighting.
For the Hendersonville house I was able to get an exterior twilight. I photographed the exterior for about an hour and a half bracketing shots as well as using a flash unit on a pole.
I think the final image was a great first attempt but the criticism I got from my Facebook groups was that the flash was over bearing, non-directional and unnatural looking. I agree with that assessment and I hope I will be able to shoot another twilight soon and use their advice to improve.
For the third week I went back to the Natchez Pointe model to take another exterior twilight. I tried to listen to the suggestions made about the first exterior. I lowered the flash power and tried to blend the ambient and flash a little better. I think there is a lot of room for improvement with my exterior shots, but the I feel like the interior shots are coming together nicely so far.
