Del Mar Terrace Residence Featured as Project of the Week in APALMANAC

I’m very excited to have been featured in APALMANAC — the world’s no. 1 online architectural photography publication — for my work on Shape Build Co.’s Del Mar Terrace Residence. It is a huge honor since APALMANAC has been extremely valuable to me as an architectural and interiors photographer. It serves as a wonderful resource for architectural photographers to get inspired by one another’s work, receive insight from the greatest architectural photographers in the world, and to grow alongside a wonderful community of talented artists.

The article, written by Lexi Taciak, covers the events that led up to me shooting this project, some of the difficulties we faced while photographing this Southern California home, and further advice for new photographers tasked with shooting a similar project.

To check out the article on APALMANAC, click here.

To view the project gallery, click here.

For more info on Shape Build Co., click here.

Analyzing the Effect of Time and Weather on the Architectural Photography Process

Loyola Marymount University Life Sciences Building | CO Architects | Los Angeles, California

Introduction

My recent shoot at the Loyola Marymount Life Sciences Building in Los Angeles, a fantastic educational architecture project by CO Architects, presented many difficulties in terms of weather. So much so, that I decided to return to the site three separate times to get the results I desired. Many might have settled for the images I was able to capture on the first day of shooting, but drawing from my experience as an architectural photographer who before shifting to the kinder climate of Los Angeles began photographing architecture in the extreme climates of Tennessee, I knew exactly what had to be done to achieve the look I wanted to capture.

The First Attempt

My initial scout of the building was rather brief for a 110,000 gsf. project. I spent about 90 minutes identifying the important features of the building and the angles which would best translate the depth of those features through the two dimensional medium of architectural photography. I knew that I would have to return at sunrise, approximately 5:30 am the next morning, to set up my first shot. While many of my clients live in Los Angeles, I reside in Orange County and had to leave the house around 4:30 am to reach the campus in time. The night before, my weather app had shown clear or party cloudy skies all day.

“Perfect!” I thought.

Upon waking, however, the apps were now showing cloudy skies all the way up until 10 am! As bad as my body would have liked to throw in the towel and go back to sleep, I decided to push forward with the words of the great New Zealand-based architectural photographer, Simon Devitt, ringing in my ears: “There’s always moments, always moments.” This means that even in non-optimal conditions, there are always moments that reveal themselves and which can be extracted by the skilled photographer who can pull out a different side of the subject than what would normally be available on a standard sunny day. Perhaps the sky would open up for a moment, spitting a divine glow on the building while the rest of the Southern California landscape remained covered in a moody darkness. That would be well worth the effort of waking up and waiting for the perfect shot. I’m sure any client would be thrilled to showcase such a fleeting moment in their portfolio.

Unfortunately for me, the sun had no such plans that day. All I was left with was dull, flat lighting where the highlights and shadows held the same levels of brightness and all objects appeared two-dimensional through the lens of the camera. While it may work for another project, the Life Sciences Building needed a more contrasting light which could highlight the materials that ran along the building, reflect off its metallic facade, and leave an imprint in the form of shadows of the trees and various life forms which held the building in the palm of its hand.

At 2 pm, I decided to call it quits and come back the next day.

The Second Attempt

Once again, I woke up at 4:30 am and drove from Orange County to Los Angeles in my attempt to get the shots in the optimal light. However, the first half of the day turned into more or less the same story… Another gloomy morning with no end in sight.

I decided to take the first few hours of the day to go over my angles, study the potential effect of the sun on them throughout the day, and map out a plan to come back in the afternoon when the sky would hopefully clear up. Since gloomy days can actually be a huge benefit for interiors (it cuts down the contrast between interior and exterior and allows a more even light to spread across the room), I decided to go ahead and shoot some of my interior shots at that time. However, when I returned later in the day even those shots proved to be trumped by the powerful effects of the sun and the character enhancement of the architecture that often comes with the evening’s directional light.

The Third, and Final, Attempt

After a delicious and lengthy lunch at a Chinese spot around the corner, I came back to campus to wait for the sky to open up. The weather apps had proven to be wholly unreliable, exacerbated by the fact that the campus is only a couple miles away from Southern California shores and June-gloom was in full effect. I knew that if the sky were to ever clear up, I would have to be present and act quickly. Thankfully, around 3 pm the first rays of sun hit the building and ran all the way up until the evening, where the clouds came back, spreading a stunning blue sheet of light above the golden building.

Below are the results of the shoot, with the before shots on the left and the afters, shot in that 3 hour window, on the right. You’ll notice how the sun brings out more of the architecture: casting long expressive shadows, better revealing the wide material palette of the building, guiding the eye to the important elements of the project, and showering the building in a warm, golden light!

Conclusion

Architectural photography is a rewarding yet demanding pursuit. It is absolutely vital that, in order to portray a project the way it should be, the photographer has a strong grasp on, and the experience to identify, how time of day and weather will effect the architecture they are tasked with photographing. As you can see above, the same compositions which once fell short or were okay at best, immediately took on a whole new life simply because the time of day and the tone set by the weather were able to come together at just the right moment and take the scene to a new level.

To view more of my images of the Loyola Marymount Life Sciences Building, click here.