Friend or Defoe
When England footballers leave their old teams, they often leave big holes in the pockets of the people who supply them with vast amounts of cash. The local Maserati dealership, lap-dancing clubs, casinos, Champagne merchants, waxing salons, and grape-peeling services all feel the burn as thousands of pounds of annual fees are withdrawn suddenly. Landlords are another of those who face the prospect of financial ruin caused by the transfer of a star player. I was asked to shoot the ex-home of a major player who had departed from the Black Cats for pastures new in the South. This gigantic gaff is part of a development inhabited solely by multi-millionaires – whose mere Range Rover fuel bills often come to ten times what I actually earn in a year. That, by the way, is NOT an exaggeration. This was a six-bed jobbie with the usual enormous kitchen, cinema room, various lounges and wings with cavernous bedrooms etc. All for the princely monthly rental of six grand a month. Your council tax will be band H – a paltry £3500 a year, or roughly an hour’s wages for this Neymar geezer at PSG apparently.
The exteriors had to be shot before the rain set in (it’s becoming depressingly familiar isn’t it?). I overexposed slightly to get the sky as white as I could so that a false sky could be added in post production. The saplings to the front were positioned so that they would eventually afford a degree of privacy, and they served their purpose well, as they obstructed my view from the side, even using elevated equipment. Time to head inside.
The reception rooms all benefit from lots of natural light, and effective interior lighting in their design, so I didn’t actually require much additional flash to supplement what was already there. I’d shot another house a few doors up last year, and I knew the spec would be beautiful. There were gaps in certain spaces where huge TV’s had been removed from the wall, so I avoided views in those directions to make life a bit easier. Flash pops were utilised on the underside of the breakfast bar and chairs, and in the hallway at the end of the kitchen, but otherwise it was all ambient light. Easy peasy.
Looking int to the kitchen from the staircase did require a little more help from the flash. The sun was streaming in at times, and this created dark shadow areas which needed some lifting with artificial light.
The rest of the spaces were relatively simple to shoot. It was just a case of finding a nice composition, shooting three natural light frames to cover all eventualities, getting a base flash exposure using flash bounced from the white ceiling, and lighting any additional rooms which were visible through doorways etc. Because the rooms were all white, devoid of furniture, and huge, there was no real need for highlight flash pops.
The one fun shot to light was the view down the four storey staircase. I had to utilise all five flash units I was carrying, and place them at different levels – facing outwards to the white wall to bounce diffuse light back into the stairwell. I left the very bottom just a touch darker to give a bit of depth.
It took about 2 hours to get everything sorted, and another 2 hours of post-production to put the pictures together. The grape-peeler guy knocked at the door to find out what time he was due that weekend, so I directed him 400 miles to the South. Should only cost about £800 in Maserati fuel. The developer is looking to sell this place for about £1.6m as far as I can remember. You’ll have some auspicious neighbours if you do buy it. Take a look at some super examples of other top-end residential property imagery at my main website.
