For the camera, the photo print or the monitor, we need to compress the light range of shadows and highlights to a narrower range. Compressing this light range can be done by filling in the shadows or controlling the highlights. Lighting for photographs needs to first address this compression.

The second part of lighting is capturing the fall of light into a space, making the photo inviting. Working with the sun, I watch how the light plays in a room and I seek to be shooting when a natural glow is present. I often still need to bring my own lights to fill in the shadows and maintain a “natural” lighting feeling.

The third part of lighting is defining form and keeping color rendition true.

Here are examples of photographs that have a natural, available light quality yet all needed some of the two hundred pounds of equipment that I bring to my photo shoots.

Like the principals of a good painting, re-cropping a photograph seeks to maintain balance, create quiet tension and keep a strong focal point. Years ago I would visit the great museums and study how old masters dealt with the edges of the frame, a skill I use today.

Andrew Fisher and Jeffrey Weisman make up the very chic San Francisco design firm Fisher Weisman. In their wine country home above the Russian River in Sonoma County they bring city elegance to country casual. Here I have made examples of photos from their original vertical format by cropping them into a horizontal format with a 3 to 4 aspect ratio. Vertical or horizontal this home is always a treat to see.

These photographs were seen in the San Francisco Chronicle and Paper City magazine.

www.fisherweisman.com

Here are the original vertical images before they were cropped into a horizontal 3x4 format.

A Web Plan

Stepping beyond the days of the photo portfolio your website needs to show prospective clients not only what you do but additionally your firm’s personality, its strengths, your process and uniqueness.

Like a business plan, having a web plan will help you focus on how you want to be perceived. You will need to decide how much information you want to provide, the layers that information comes in and the paths that you want to follow.

Most current web plans have many paths:
• Formal Website, based on a Flash presentation
• Blog, based on HTML
• Social networks, like Flickr and Linkedin

These separate paths make up your web presence and each has unique benefits.

A formal Flash site will be a tight professional presentation of your firm’s aesthetic, style and point of view. Designing and loading such a site takes considerable time and effort and can be quite expensive also. In the past two years, firms like www.bludomain.com have been selling templates costing $100 to $400 (+ hosting fees) that have great graphic and programming elements.

A few examples of BluDomain websites:
www.sitedesign.net.au
www.paulpagedwellings.com
www.radiant-design.info/

A Blog could be similar to a newsletter. Freshness and depth of information can be put together in short time, with minimal cost and modified with ease. Blogs can be set up for special projects or for sub-niche areas of your practice.

Blog, a contraction for the term “Web log” is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or videos. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. First popularized with the likes of MySpace.com and Facebook.com the genre has expanded to include political blogs, travel blogs, house blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dreamlogs.

Two prominent free blogging sites are:
www.livejournal.com
www.blogger.com

Wordpress is a free shareware software program that is technically robust and supported by a huge international community www.wordpress.com. With Wordpress you can create your site yourself but will need to have your blog hosted by a firm that will store your blog/website and make it available to those searching the web. Here is a firm that will hand hold you while creating your blog. I have no experience with how they work…www.blogdesignstudio.com

Interesting Blogs:
www.plastolux.com
www.mediastorm.org/blog/
http://decor8blog.com/
www.studioannetta.com

When speaking of blogs many might think of a site like this www.oninteriordesign.com or even decor8blog.com/ where the author/designer makes very frequent posts. Other Blogs feel much less like a diary and depend less on a timeline for the information. See www.studiolivingston.com

The Social network component puts you within a larger community and shows other facets of you and your firm’s personality. LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com, is gaining wide spread adoption and use for professional and corporate networking. Facebook,
www.facebook.com, is primarily for individuals and their social networks but is another way to connect with people from your industry and possibly potential clients. Think of these sites as a way to show informal, out of the box, and deeper aspects of your firm that would be otherwise difficult to fit in your formal or Blog site.

A New Tool: “Action…Cut!”

Short videos are going to be more and more part of creative and effective websites. They engage viewers and hold their attention. Videos work in ways that slide shows do not, they allow a more direct presentation that goes beyond words and clicks. The traditional website is dependent on click and views making the host dependent on the viewer discovering the information. A video clip packages the information and serves it up, a passive engagement that gives the host more control in framing their presentation. Finally, younger generations are more accustomed seeing images move and are attracted to this type of visual.

The typical web viewer spends 55 seconds on a website. A video presentation of two minutes will help keep the viewer on the website longer and if done well can sell your services’ many facets more directly. Potential clients coming upon your website, seeing your clip, take that first impression to start the connection you will build upon.

We are also seeing magazines and newspapers adding video and multimedia on their websites, our own California Home and Design, Interior Design Magazine and the New York times are some examples. Here is a clip from Interior Design Magazine:
http://www.interiordesign.net/BCVideo.html?bcpid=1630415432&bclid=5253541001&bctid=4688344001 and a slideshow from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2008/09/07/style/t/index.html#pageName=07interiorsi

Video will change the way projects are documented; a hierarchy of still and moving images will make up the final video. Hero shots taken with great care and control will be foremost, binder/transition shots will be used to fill out the video and add context and finally direct videos of interviews and motion.
Producing, directing, videography and editing services are being added to the commercial photography services. Examples of videos created by Studio Livingston can be seen by clicking on the following links:
Hawaii Seas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMjk_WidS9I
Samantha Lyman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC8nb1elWHQ
2008 Day By Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0i3eggf5aQ

Similar videos exploring this media can be commissioned.

Inspirational Websites and Blogs

Large images:
www.cdcdesigns.com
www.reidrolls.com
www.christianothstudio.com
www.webstersheryn.com

Videos:
www.cahanassociates.com
www.chdmag.com
www.soulofathens.com

Interesting blogs:
www.plastolux.com
www.mediastorm.org/blog/
http://decor8blog.com
www.studioannetta.com

Resources

Build your own website for $100 or $400 with large scale images at:
www.bludomain.com

Build your own blog with:
www.wordpress.com
http://graphpaperpress.com/ based on WordPress code
(www.studiolivingston.com was built with WordPress)

Connect with people from your industry and make new contacts with:
www.linkedin.com

Show a different facet of your personality with:
www.facebook.com

Post videos of your work at:
www.youtube.com
www.vimeo.com

Post images of your work at:
www.flickr.com
(To see some of my collections, check out: www.flickr.com/photos/studiolivingston/)

For this two day photo shoot I brought my gear to the Las Vegas World Market and Brownstone’s showroom. On the last day of a trade show we set up 12 foot wide seamless white paper and created a photography studio on location. Working quickly with a couple of guys, the furniture was placed on the paper, I then worked with the lighting and camera to frame these compositions

Working in today’s compressed product to market cycle, the photography is crucial to marketing efforts. By bringing the studio to the product we shaved of weeks getting these photos to Brownstone’s clients.

For me the elements of scale, color and texture need to come together supporting the balance and harmony of the space.

Samantha, who has had her practice for three years in Ross, wanted me to create photographs that would be paired together on her website samanthalyman.com. She sought to showcase the broad strokes and tasty details that make a room.

Careful consideration was given to the aspect ratio of the compositions so the photographs could work in a one third two third arrangement as tall verticals and horizontal rectangles. With pre-planning and attentive art direction throughout the day we created these perfect takes.

The principals of Ironies and I took a great monochromatic assemblage of forms and textures and used a lighting and photography style to create a soft mood.

Here from Sub-Zero are styling guidelines that are right on the money and a great help in prepping for a photo shoot.

Photography should look warm, lived in, fresh, approachable, natural, and inviting. It should not convey a contrived, dramatic, or perfect image. Propping should follow the same approach.

Overall Objectives:

Less is more. The composition can be simple and still luxurious.

The purpose of all our photography is to:
Inspire readers
Make the room feel inviting
Convey informationReveal how the kitchen functions
Explain the layout
Show the relationship of kitchen to adjoining areas

Props should:
Look realistic
Be logical
Reflect a level of accessible good taste
Use only natural flowers, and in moderation
Bigger is better and less is more is our desired look

Props should not:
Be moved from one shot to another
Use lighted candles in day shots
Be too messy, crowded, busy, hectic or overwhelming
Combine incompatible objects (e.g. onions and bananas)
Be cliché, such as the dish towel draped on edge of counter

Details should:
Show something not easily seen or not clear in an overall shot
Use scale effectively
Guide the eye to important features