Photographing 19th Century Machinery

I’m hoping winter is finally over, after the “light sleet” today. I’ve never heard sleet described as light. I can’t wait for the flowering trees to get going and for color to reappear.

The Metropolitan Waterworks Museum

I recently gave a presentation at Newton Camera Club and in my networking group, PRANG, of photos I shot at the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum in Chestnut Hill. If you haven’t been, I recommend it. The museum is open Wednesdays through Sundays. It is amazing to see the huge steam engines that were once used for pumping fresh water into the city of Boston. The station was built in 1887 and used until the 1970s when Boston’s water supply was switched to the Quabbin Reservoir.

Taking photos of machinery is something I love to do – especially the way machines were built in the 19th century, with great attention to design. It is a challenge to find shots in a busy environment – simplifying so that each shot makes visual sense to the viewer. I spent hours at the museum (as part of a workshop with other photographers), looking from many different angles to find combinations of shapes and colors that worked.

The shot below is one where I took the interesting parts of multiple pipes and junctions and stacked them visually to make a harmonious composition.

One thing I like about machinery is the challenge of making beautiful shots from such large, imposing, utilitarian landscapes. Finding the delicacy among the heavy-duty parts. To me, doing such a photo shoot is like meditation – spending a lot of time looking and not speaking, getting the best angles and finding all the shapes and lines. I try to bring that same feeling into my commercial work, looking at how a space flows, how the shapes stack up vertically and horizontally when translating a three-dimensional space into two dimensions in a flattering way, while also making the space comprehensible to the viewer.

Elisif Photography provides high quality architectural photography to companies in the building industry, including architects, builders, developers, commercial and residential real estate brokers, interior designers, interior decorators, remodelers, and more.

One of my residential remodeling clients, GreenEdge, has a fun tradition. When we take photos of new kitchens, bathrooms, or additions, we put a wooden hippo sculpture in each shot (or at least most of them). Then on their website, it is fun to try to find the hippo in each shot! The hippo didn’t make it to every shoot, but many of them. Find the hippos in this beautiful white home.

Photo Tip of the Month: TOP THREE THINGS FOR IMPROVING ANY PHOTO

The top three things to adjust to make a photo come out its best are exposure, sharpness, and cropping or framing.

1. Exposure
Getting the exposure right is critical to making a good photo. These days with digital photography and cell phones, it is simple to edit the photo and make it brighter or dimmer as needed to make the exposure right. What is the best way to tell if the exposure is right? Look at the brightest objects in your photo, particularly things that are white. Is it a true white, or are they coming out gray? Look people's faces - are they easy to see? Are the shadows too dark and murky? Lots of software is available for correcting exposure. I use Adobe's Lightroom, but most photo apps will work fine, including those on cell phones where you can edit photos in just a few clicks.

2. Sharpness
It is so important to get your subject sharp (except in those cases where you are making an artistic choice for your image or subject to be blurry). If you do not get it sharp in the camera, there is not a lot you can do to correct it afterwards. There are lots of sharpening tools in photo editing apps, but they won't really help if your subject isn't sharp to begin with - they can really only be used to enhance the sharpness that is already there. The only real exception is blur from moving the camera during the shot - Photoshop has some ways to correct that blur. But it is best to get it right in the camera. When you are selecting an image to use for social media, printing, etc., always look for sharpness first.

3. Cropping
Framing your subject well can really increase the impact of your image. If you are photographing an animal or people moving in the frame, leave extra space in front of them, space the viewer imagines they are moving into. If you take a portrait of someone, don't leave too much space above their head. Fill the frame with your subject - get close. It is fine to leave space when you take the photograph, but afterwards, look at all the edges of the frame - are there parts of the image that just don't add anything? Too much sky or too much foreground? Can you crop out distracting elements? If so, it can really add to the power of your photos.

Does this look like spring?

Does this look like spring? The first day of spring is here but there is still snow on the ground!

Ok yes, I did take this photo two weeks ago, but there is still snow on the ground and more coming. But soon it will look more like this!

Putting People in Architectural Photos

For many years I believed that architectural photos were best done with no people in them at all, to maintain focus on the lines and shapes of the architectural space. But the last few years I've been adding people to my shots where possible - sometimes as a stranger crosses through the space, sometimes using models (i.e. my clients or assistants who join me on the shoot).

100 Summer Street Lobby in Boston, shot for Columbia Construction

Having a person or two in the shot gives a better feel for how the space is used, and after all, architecture is built to be used by people, not to be kept empty. Consider this shot by Ezra Stoller (scroll down to the last photo). The curves of the TWA terminal at JFK are beautiful on their own, but with the people in the space, it becomes more than curves and lines - it becomes a space that people use. The people give the space a three dimensional feeling, when it might otherwise look flat and hard to understand.

Republic Fitness at International Place in Boston, shot for PCA

We are people, so when we view images, we want to be able to picture ourselves in the space. Having people in the photos draws your eye and gives the architecture the human scale for reference. A blurred person can also fill a space that has less architectural interest. The direction the person is walking can help emphasize the flow of the space.

MCLE shot for PCA

When I take photos with people in them, I take note of my shutter speed (shooting in aperture priority to get the depth of field I want). Then I instruct the people how quickly or slowly to move to create just the right level of blur. Sometimes it is trial and error, so I shoot a lot of options to get the result the client and I are looking for.

Of course with Photoshop, it is relatively straightforward (I won't say easy) to take blurred people from one shot and place them in another - that way adding more people than might have been there in just that one version, or picking and choosing the best blur for each person.

Finally, people in a space can make it more lively and bustling!

Longwood Center shot for Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Elisif Photography provides high quality architectural photography to companies in the building industry, including architects, builders, developers, commercial and residential real estate brokers, interior designers, interior decorators, remodelers, and more.

I love going to NAIOP events in Boston. NAIOP is a great way to network with people in the building industry (also called the A/E/C industry - architecture, engineering, construction). So far this year NAIOP has had events about the new construction near North Station and Bulfinch Triangle, about providing amenities in buildings to draw peoples' interest in working there, a new restaurant (Mastro's) in the Seaport, and a wonderful tour of the offices and sets of America's Test Kitchen on Dry Dock Avenue. If you want to stay informed about what is happening in the city and meet all kinds of people in A/E/C fields, NAIOP is a great way to do it.

PHOTO TIP OF THE MONTH: DETAILS

How much of a car do you need to have in a photograph to know it is a car? Just a rear-view mirror? Maybe even just the outline of the gas tank door. When you are taking a photo of something that draws your eye, think about photographing just part of it - you don't always need the whole car, the whole building, the whole tree or flower - photographing details can lead to simpler photos, and simplicity has great impact. Try to capture to the parts of the image that really appeal to you - what is it about it that made you want to take a photo? Was it a specific curve, a bit of contrast in color or light? Simplify to that detail and see what amazing and unexpected results you can get.

Hotels need photos too!

Photographing Hotels

One of the types of buildings I like to shoot is hotels. Every time a hotel does a remodel of their rooms or lobby or restaurant or meeting spaces, they need new photos for their website. As a fan of hotels (I love a nice hotel room as much as a place I'm visiting for vacation!), I enjoy finding the best way to show the design of the lobby, the pleasantness of a room, the decor, the amenities such as pools or fitness rooms.

Above is the lobby of the Loews Hotel Boston, which I shot for Columbia Construction after they had remodeled the lobby and restaurant. Photographing an entire hotel can take a full day, and I have worked out the timing for capturing the spaces when there are the fewest hotel guests around. My goal is to disturb the guests as little as possible.

Above is the bar/restaurant area of the Loews Hotel Boston. We had a work around contractors that day, but the photo came out beautifully in the end. Having the chairs turned toward the camera makes a big difference in making the place look welcoming.

The Courtyard Copley Hotel, also called the Exeter (historically), had me take photos of the beautiful exterior, as well as the lobby and rooms when they were remodeled a few years ago.

The hotel managers work with me to make the room look inviting - including fresh flowers and champagne. I choose angles that help show the layout of the room. I know as a guest of hotels, I like to see what the whole room looks like in photos before I choose the place.

If you know of any marketing managers at a hotel, please send me referrals!

Elisif Photography provides high quality architectural photography to companies in the building industry, including architects, builders, developers, commercial and residential real estate brokers, interior designers, interior decorators, remodelers, and more.

Last night I judged for NECCC - the New England Camera Club Council. NECCC has monthly competitions among all camera clubs in New England who wish to enter. I was one of three judges - we had keypads to enter scores between 3 and 10 for each image. The sum of the scores fits in the usual range of scores up to 30 points. Boston Camera Club was hosting the competition this time. I usually prefer judging for an individual club, when I can give comments as well as a score, but this competition allows me to see such a range of great photos from all over New England. I learn from other photographers when I judge, as well as teaching others.

PHOTO TIP OF THE MONTH: WHITE BALANCE

What is white balance? It is a setting on your camera as well as in post-processing software. Cameras are so smart these days that most people shoot on Auto White Balance (AWB) most of the time. If you are shooting nature, you will have a combination of direct sun (daylight white balance) or cloudy light (cloudy white balance), and shade (shade white balance). If you use flash, the white balance would be very similar to daylight. Interior light is often much warmer than daylight. But your camera will look at the entire scene and decide on an average color temperature and try to set the white balance accordingly.

In post-processing, you can adjust the white balance to move it more toward a cooler temperature (daylight) or a warmer temperature (interior light). Many interiors that I shoot include both daylight coming in through windows and various different color temperature light bulbs in the space. I adjust the color balance to match the majority of the light, and then either let the windows go a little blue, or do some selective adjustments of color temperature with the adjustment brush in Lightroom.

Love & Fate Exhibit Opening

I am honored that five of my images have been selected for an exhibit called Love & Fate! The exhibit is showing from now through March 15th at the Monique Rancourt Artisan Gallery/Lincoln Arts Project on Moody Street in Waltham. The opening reception is from 6 to 9pm this coming Friday night at 289 Moody Street in Waltham. There is a large parking lot behind that block of stores and restaurants.

Please join me for the opening if you can make it! See below the write-up of the exhibit from the curator, Waltham artist Sarah Leon.

Join us Opening Night for a evening of Art and Serendipity.

Love & Fate is an exhibit of black and white photography with insightful and unexpected interpretations. See the work, meet new artists, learn about your fate with a tarot card reading, and find new works in the Monique Rancourt Artisan Gallery. You may learn a lucky secret, make a new connection, or find a gift for yourself and your Valentine.

FEATURED ARTISTS:
Ariel Kessler
Beth McCutcheon
Chris Maliga
Elisif Brandon
Jon Washer
Marshall Goff
Nicole Mordecai
Peter Morse

Readings courtesy of the wonderful Paige Zaferiou of Paige Z's Tarot and Tea! We are so delighted to have her working with us. $10 per reading – remember to bring cash!

Check out the event on Facebook!

https://www.facebook.com/events/2004276176479381/

Peace and Joy for the Holidays

I am very grateful to all my clients for their business this year! I’ve been lucky to photograph many different spaces and places. Thank you for a successful 2017!

Above: Christmas tree and streamers in the atrium of 125 High Street, where Tishman Speyer hosted the NAIOP holiday party.

Did you know I take photos at corporate events as well as photographing architecture? I have provided photography for NAIOP (the Commercial Real Estate Development organization formerly known as the National Association of Industrial and Office Parks) events since 2010! NAIOP is wonderful to work with; not only do I meet a lot of my clients through NAIOP events, but also I learn so much about what is going on in the Boston area building industry. For NAIOP, I take candid and posed shots of people networking, people presenting individually or on panels, or people in groups posing or on tours of local buildings.

I love to capture people engaged in interesting discussions and find it very satisfying to get good shots of as many people at the events as possible. My goal is to make you look good!

Recently, I did a shoot for the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. They held a 25th Anniversary celebration and conference for their Department of Population Medicine. Their founders were honored, as well as researchers and fellowship students, at their offices in Landmark Center and in Fenway Park’s Dell EMC Club. The photos below are from NAIOP events and the Harvard Pilgrim event.

Having professional photography of your event is essential to creating high quality images for social media – sharing event photos on social media is a must these days and a great way to bring attention to your company, your cause, or your institution.

Is your company or institution planning an event? I’m booking now for events in the first six months of 2018! If you book an event shoot with me before January 31, get a complimentary two-minute video slideshow set to music for social media.

Above: Photo of the Schrafft building lobby at its grand opening after its transformation into a residential/mixed use space. Shot for Flately through JLL.

Elisif Photography provides high quality architectural photography to companies in the building industry, including architects, builders, developers, commercial and residential real estate brokers, interior designers, interior decorators, remodelers, and more.

I have recently joined a new networking group through Meetup.com. The group is called PRANG – Professional referral and networking group. We meet weekly at 8:30am on Wednesdays in Waltham to learn about each other’s businesses. We took the best ideas from other networking groups and formed this new one. Ask me for more info if you would like to join us!

PHOTO TIP OF THE MONTH: FINDING THE UNUSUAL ANGLE

The photo above is one I took recently at the Central Reform Temple’s Chanukah Cantata, A Light Through the Ages. What a beautiful celebration! I have been taking photos for CRT on and off since 2010. This is the first year I found this unusual angle, after a suggestion from a member of the choir.

When you are taking photos of anything, an event, a person, a fire hydrant, a flower, a building, think about unusual angles. Move around the subject and see how it looks from different perspectives. Get down at ground level for flower shots. Photograph a person from the side, to see the faces of who they are interacting with. Look straight up at a building to get extreme angles. Try everything. Break out of the mold of standard shot-making. You never know if something will work until you try!

New Pier 4 condos – photographed for my client Tishman Speyer

Also, keep an eye out next week (due out Nov. 22) for the new issue of Boston Common Magazine – my photos will be featured there as well! It will be another article about the Pier 4 development.

In September, Tishman Speyer hired me to take photos of the sales office for the condos being built at Pier 4. The photo above shows one of the sample kitchens and living-room setups, so potential buyers can walk through and get an idea of what the finished condos could look like even while construction is still going on. The sales office is at the tip of the Pier 4 property, so the views are similar to what the views will be from the condos once they are done. It's a spectacular location.

As part of the sales office, there is a memory wall, showing the history of the site where Anthony’s Pier 4 was situated for so many years. So many people remember having dinners at Anthony’s, which was an icon on the Boston waterfront. I had dinner there once with my husband and his parents. Now Pier 4 is taking on a new life, and when construction is done, there will be a one-acre public park at the tip of the pier that everyone can enjoy.

It is hard to believe how quickly the Seaport has changed. Every time I go there, a new building has sprouted up! Once more retail opens up, I believe it may be quite a lively place. I definitely plan to check out the new movie theater once it opens, plus I'm enjoying all the great restaurants in the area, such as Tikkaway Grill (above, shot for PCA) and Committee (where NAIOP has held several events), and Temazcal at Liberty Wharf. District Hall also provides a great coffee shop, after-hours meetup space, and event space. All in all, I enjoy the new Seaport area, especially the easy access from the Pike, and the new parking garages I’ve found. Once there are more shops, it will buzz.

Elisif Photography provides high quality architectural photography to companies in the building industry, including architects, builders, developers, commercial and residential real estate brokers, interior designers, interior decorators, remodelers, and more.

Three news items:

• Three of my photos are in the Newton Camera Club exhibit at the West Newton Cinema, and the show, featuring 60 images by 25 different photographers, will be up through Jan. 27. Great place to shop for holiday presents. Thanks to all who came to the opening reception!

• I am honored to now be the Teaching Assistant for the Digital Printing evening workshop at New England School of Photography (NESOP). The class is large enough that the teacher needs help answering all the technical questions while she focuses on the creative questions. It is great experience for me, and allows me access to NESOP facilities.

• In fact, speaking of access to NESOP, now is the time if you want prints made as large as 24x36 for a very reasonable fee. I do custom printing at home, and now can use these large printers just a block away. Email me if you are interested.

PHOTO TIP OF THE MONTH: Taking good photos of people at events

When you attend a wedding or reunion or a work event, do your photos come out well? These days everyone shoots photos with their phone, and cell phone cameras are getting better and better. Here are some ways you can improve what you get at events, even if you are just using your phone:

• Have your subjects turn so the light in the room is hitting their face, rather than having the room lights behind them.

• Take multiple shots! Someone is always blinking. If you take three of four shots of the same people, at least one of them is bound to catch everyone with their best expressions and their eyes open.

• Capture moments where your subjects are interacting with each other, not just posed and looking at the camera. These days cameras are everywhere, so everyone knows how to pose – but what we really treasure are capturing those unguarded moments between people.

Upcoming NCC exhibit with three of my photos!

The Newton Camera Club is having its annual exhibit in November-December at the West Newton Cinema and I’m honored that three of my photographs were chosen by the curating committee! The opening will be Sunday Nov. 5 from 3:30-5:30pm. We will have lots of food and most of the photographers will be there (including me!). When you go into the cinema, just tell them you are going upstairs to the exhibit opening, not a movie.

The photo above is a shot I took last summer, which I call “Tall Ship in Boston Harbor.” I was downtown to take dusk shots of Tikkaway Grill for a client, and it was just after the Tall Ship event, so I went over to the harbor a block away to see if any were still there. There was one!! The sky was beautiful so I caught the city with the ship and some people walking by.

My second shot in the exhibit is a shot I took just last month of Toronto City Hall. I was thinking of Ezra Stoller’s iconic photographs of modernist architecture when I took it, thinking of where the people were, how to frame it with an interesting foreground, middle ground, and background. The buildings were designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell in 1965, but they remind me so much of Oscar Niemeyer’s work, including the Empire State Plaza in Albany. I tried to capture all the interesting curves.

My third image is a rare nature scene for me – frosty plants from a personal shoot last winter at Medfield State Hospital. What a cold day!

I hope you can make it to the exhibit opening! If not, let me know when you think you'll stop by and maybe I can join you.

PHOTO TIP OF THE MONTH: FINDING INSPIRATION

Where do you go to find inspiration? What draws your eye? Do you ever try to capture it in a photograph? These days everyone has a camera with them, on their phone, and the saying is, your best camera is the one you have with you.

To improve your photography, keep shooting all the time! Give yourself assignments or have a friend give you one (ex. spend one day only photographing things that are yellow, or try to notice and photograph circles for a day). You’ll find you start to look at ordinary objects in different ways. Find what you enjoy shooting most. And go see exhibits of photography and artworks in other media for inspiration.

Working with an Architectural Photographer

Tips on preparing for a shoot with an architectural photographer:

• Think about what views you want to capture
• Is the place clean and tidy?
• For an exterior, tell the photographer which side of the building is most important to get in good light, so she/he can decide the best time of day to shoot it
• Are all the lightbulbs working and can they be turned on?
• Are there broken blinds? (There is nothing uglier than broken blinds!)

Thinking ahead about these details can make the results much better, and avoid last-minute surprises or retouching to be done. 

Instagram - loving it!

Lately I’ve been expanding my social media outreach to include Instagram, and since it is a photo-based platform, I’ve been loving it.  Please check out my Instagram feed @elisifphotography.

I found lots of people to follow and the more people I follow, the more follow me.  I've tried to find the Instagram accounts of companies in the building industry in the area, and follow them so they might notice me.

In learning more about Instagram and hashtags, I found out it is best to put the hashtags in a comment, rather in the description of the photo - so that way they are less in the way, but still searchable.  If you search for various hashtags, you can find out what other people are using, and use those same ones.  One recommendation was to put about 20 hashtags on each post.  You use general hashtags (#architecture, #photography), specific hashtags for your geographic location (#bostonarchitecture, etc.), and hashtags specific to the photo you are posting (#kitchen, #modernarchitecture).

Are you on Instagram?  What do you like/dislike about it?  Have you found interesting people to follow? 

Elisif Photography's new website is LIVE!

The biggest news this month is that MY NEW WEBSITE IS NOW LIVE! Check it out at www.elisif.com. I used Squarespace to build it, which worked beautifully.

I was taking photos of a house in Falmouth for one of my oldest clients, Rockwood Inc., a company based in Walpole that does home remodeling, including kitchens, bathrooms, additions, decks, siding, and now, whole houses. The second floor of this house in Falmouth has a lovely wide hallway at the top of the stairs, so they set it up like a reading nook. But before the shoot they only had time to finish one of the two curtains.

After thinking about it for just a minute, I realized I could fix that in Photoshop. Now I'm not the best whiz in Photoshop – there are so many people whose business is focused primarily on retouching or other effects in Photoshop who know much more than I do – but I knew I could combine two photos. Instead of Photoshopping the existing curtain from one side onto the other side, I took two photos, one with the curtain on the right and then I physically moved the curtain to the left and took another photo. Much easier to combine in Photoshop that way than to try to copy and paste the curtain there with the chair only on one side. Here are the two photos I shot.

Voila! Matching curtains on both sides, using the same actual curtain. I continue to be amazed at what can be done in Photoshop. It is almost always easier to get it right in the camera, but when it is needed, Photoshop can save the day. And I shoot knowing exactly how I'll use the shots in Photoshop later, to get the result the client needs.

Here is a wonderful new testimonial I received recently from my client, PCA: "Elisif is a delight to work with...consistently quick, creative and flexible, helping us to capture key design and planning elements of our projects for all of our marketing needs. She brings a sharp eye, excellent skills and a 'can do' attitude, making even complex photo shoots breeze by. We consider Elisif an important contributor to our marketing efforts at PCA."Dagmar von Schwerin, Marketing Director, PCA
Laura Ligon, Marketing Coordinator, PCA

PHOTO TIP OF THE MONTH: JOIN A CAMERA CLUB

I sometimes say I learned everything I know in photography from my camera club. It isn't totally true; I did take several great classes and workshops at New England School of Photography (NESOP) in order to turn pro. But I joined Newton Camera Club soon after we moved to the Boston area in 1997, and I gained a lot of my knowledge, my eye, my technique, and my confidence through the camera club.

The first thing I recommend to people who want to become better at photography is to join a local camera club! There are so many advanced amateurs out there who are eager to share what they know, and from whom I've learned so much. I now judge competitions for various camera clubs in the area, and I still learn things and am inspired by the photography of camera club members.

Doing a shoot beyond security at the airport

This photo was taken at Logan Airport, at the Legal Seafood restaurant in Terminal C.  Prellwitz Chilinski Associates, also known as PCA, hired me to shoot this restaurant after they designed it.  As you can see, they were going for an atmosphere of being under the sea, with light from above.  The ceiling light evokes bubbles rising to the surface. 
 
It was interesting doing a photo shoot inside security at the airport.  Since we didn’t have plane tickets, we had to go a day in advance to the main security office of the airport, where they did a background check and reviewed our IDs.  Then we had to go back for the shoot at nearly 11pm so we could take photos right after the last customers left.  The interior designer and I spent a lot of time getting the placemats and napkins and chairs lined up just right!  You can see from the pattern that even one thing out of place would be very noticeable.