Ex-council house
Architectural-based shoots are hard to come by outside the teeming metropolis. Architects in the North East seems to shun the services of photographers when documenting the results of their careful planning and execution of various projects, instead preferring seemingly to be content with taking a few ill-grabbed snaps of completed buildings using iPhones or compact cameras. Choosing an architect is a bit like choosing a builder – you want someone with a proven & successful track record to ensure that everything goes as planned. You would probably want to see or hear about prior work, and there is no better proof of that than professionally recorded imagery. I can’t understand why someone in the upper echelons of the earning population would be satisfied with a mobile phone picture to put in a portfolio, when it will only cost a few hundred quid to have the project documented properly utilising composition, lighting, and straight vertical lines to accentuate and underpin their reputation for excellent work. Another mystery of the universe that seems to affect the professional photography market.
Anyway, whilst shooting a real-estate job, it sometimes becomes apparent that there is an opportunity to shoot architectural images alongside those required for online marketing websites such as Rightmove. This project was for a developer converting an ex-council HQ into luxury apartments in the centre of Barnard Castle.
Teesdale House used to be a council building, which was sold off and developed after some long-winded planning issues around parking and so forth. It’s on the main road into Barnard Castle, and comprises various sized apartments with kitchenettes and two bedrooms. The main attraction however is the three-bed townhouse accessed through a small alleyway. The solid door opens up into a huge open living space and elevated bedroom/bathroom section with two-way mirrored windows, and the original building features conserved. As soon as I copped eyes on the space, and it’s clean angles I knew I could shoot this architecturally as well as wide.
Shooting architecturally means getting in a bit tighter, using a 24mm lens usually. It means focusing on elements within a space, drawing attention to the intent of the architects design vision, showing how the natural light and artificial light combine within the space, and generally producing a series of images which sum up the space. Estate agents simply want to show as much as possible to sell the thing, and really aren’t concerned with the aesthetics or design elements. Architectural images are often shot as one-point perspectives – that’s where the lines of the scene lead to one point such as that below. (Straight-on if you like). Real estate shooting is generally done from a corner of the room to encompass the entirety.
There were some issues with this shoot – namely that the gaff wasn’t finished. There was no safety glass in the first floor rails, or bannisters on the stairs. I had to be ultra-careful not to fall to my death, and needed to retouch in some slightly-green safety glass for the final files. The portrait-oriented shot hasn’t been done yet (hey, I’m busy), and this will wait for my architecture portfolio coming soon.
The atrium lights didn’t have any bulbs in as yet, so I had to put a flash on the end of a light stand, set it to low power, and light each pendant separately to make them look like lights. The big doors opened up into a small courtyard area to the rear. The living area was huge, but I couldn’t help thinking that there was a bit too much height for my liking. It’ll appeal to some though.
I shot the stairs from a couple of directions, and had to ensure that the ground-floor frosted glass window, and reflective first-floor bedroom window were taken care of by lighting inside, and outside respectively.
The rest of the rooms, and the other apartments within the development were pretty much empty white rooms that just needed documenting for the website, so I got on with these sequentially over the course of the day. I always have a wander around the town after a shoot here, and treated myself to a dirty Greggs. The geezer at the till gave me change of £10 from a twenty, but I didn’t realise until later. Watch out.
