Eichler Home on the Market

Several photos of a very nice Eichler Home in Los Altos, CA, that I shot recently for Monique Lombardelli, Modern Homes Realty.

 

Rear Elevation

Atrium

Atrium

Entrance Hall

Entrance Hall

Kitchen/Family Room/Dining Room

Dining Room

Recent Real Estate Marketing Photography

 Some photos I did of a recently built home in Los Altos, CA, for a recent real estate marketing assignment:

Front Exterior

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Master Bedroom

Central Hall

Rear Patio

Client: Derk Brill/Alain Pinel Realtors.

Builder: Urban West

Recent Real Estate Marketing Photography

This is the living room of a mansion in Atherton, CA that I shot recently for a real estate marketing assignment.

Client: Ken DeLeon/DeLeon Realty

Mansion Living Room

RIP Catherine Munson

Catherine Munson, a long-time real estate agent based in Marin County, died recently after a brief illness, at the age of 86: Catherine Munson Obituary

Catherine's career began with Eichler homes, for which she initially worked as a hostess, showing homes when the sales personel were otherwise occupied and prequalifying potential buyers. She subsequently joined the company's sales staff. After Eichler Homes went out of business, Catherine went out on her own as a real estate agent, specializing in Eichler Homes. She founded her own real estate brokerage, LVP Marin.

One of the challenges that Eichler homes had in selling its homes, was that people with traditional furnishings found it hard to envision how their furnishings might be compatible with the modern style of the homes. According to my father, Edward (Ned) Eichler, who oversaw sales at the company, Catherine was the best at helping prospective buyers to see how these seemingly incompatible styles could work.

Recent Twilight Photography

Here is a recent twilight photo I did for a real estate listing in San Mateo, CA, for Geoffrey Nelson/Pacific Union International. I can't emphasize enough that twilight photos are not only useful for fancy, luxury properties, but can really highlight more ordinary homes as well. In fact, in some ways they can be even more useful for ordinary homes.

Residential Twilight Exterior

Updated Photos for the Lowell House

I was recently asked to do some updated photos for the listing of 215 Lowell Ave., Palo Alto, to show the exterior with Spring foliage and some of the interiors that had been restaged. Here are some of the photos. Thanks, Derk Brill, with Alain Pinel Realtors, for giving me another opportunity to photograph this lovely home at the peak time of the year.

Exterior-Side

Exterior Side

Library-Music Room

Dining Room

Bedroom

Media-Family Room

25893 West Fremont Advertisement

Here is a recent advertisement for a luxury real estate listing that I shot.

25893 West Fremont Road, Los Altos Hills, CA

Recent Twilight Photography

Here is an exterior twilight shot of a home in Los Altos, CA, that I did for a recent real estate listing (by Ken DeLeon/DeLeon Realty). I can't emphasize enough the usefulness of this kind of shot for really making a home stand out. While many people tend to think of these kinds of shots in terms of high-end homes, more mainstream homes can benefit as well. However, not all homes benefit to the same degree. It really depends upon the setting and the design of the home. In this case, the home had very large picture windows and nice landscaping, which made it an obvious candidate for this kind of treatment.

Strictly speaking, this was shot at dusk rather than twilight, dusk being the period between sunset and twilight, and twilight being the few minutes between dusk (or dawn) and night. At twilight the light often becomes very blue or even purplish, which has lead people to refer to it as the blue hour (really just a matter of 5 or 10 minutes).

Generally speaking, twilight photos tend to be more dramatic than dusk photos, since there is often more contrast and the colors will be more intense. However, sometimes a more subtle effect is more appealing with some subjects. Sometimes the interior and exterior lighting doesn't balance out as well at twilight, although sometimes supplementary lighting can be added to account for that; however, with supplementary lighting for twilight photos, the result may not always be completely natural looking. Usually the difficulty in this regard is with adding light to the exterior rather than the interior. Even with dusk photos, supplementary lighting can be useful, however. In the case of this photo, I added some light inside the house, to better balance out the light from the windows.

12031 Hilltop Drive, Los Altos

Spectacular Views from Russian Hill

Here are some photos I shot of the marketing of penthouse co-op apartment in the Russian Hill section of San Francisco. 1750 Taylor Street, 24th Floor. You know you are pretty high up when you can look down on Coit Tower and the Transamerica Pyramid.

Recent Listing in Coldwell Banker Previews Magazine

Here is a property I shot recently (28011 Elena Ave, Los Altos Hills, CA) in the Summer 2012 Coldwell Banker Previews Magazine. Yours for a mere $50,000,000.

16490 Lucky Road, Los Gatos

Here are some photos from another recent shoot for a real estate listing, by Carol Jeans of the Sereno Group. Another fun shoot of a really nicely remodeled and decorated home with terrific views.

90 Stevenson Lane, Atherton

Here are a couple of shots I did last month for a high-end real estate listing in Atherton, CA, for Hanna Shacham, with the Menlo Park office of Coldwell Banker. It is always fun to shoot homes that are nicely decorated. In this case, it was the homeowner's own decor, not staged furnishings. I would like to point out that photography for real estate often involves using very wide views, to give a sense of the space. If I were shooting for an interior designer or an architect, I would most likely create somewhat tighter compositions, at least for the kitchen shot.

A technical aside, the wider you shoot interiors, the harder they tend to be to light, because there is less room to hide the lights or to avoid unwanted reflections and shadows from the lights. Also, shots such as these tend to need supplementary lighting not only in the foreground space, but in the adjoining spaces as well, to keep them from looking like "black holes."

Twilight Photo-1321 Harker Avenue, Palo Alto, CA

Here is another in my series of residential twilight photos, a craftsman style house located in the Community Center area of Palo Alto, CA.

This is from a recent listing by one of my real estate clients: Ken DeLeon, DeLeon Realty.

Recent Work-3180 Cowper Street, Palo Alto

Here is a double page ad for a real estate listing in a recent edition of the Palo Alto Weekly, which uses my photos.

 I think this is a good example of how twilight photos can enhance the presentation of a property. Also, since this ad is destined for newspaper usage, which typically has relatively limited reproduction quality, it is useful to have images which will hold up well in that medium. I think twilight photos achieve this, with the right subject. Also, brightly lit interior photos will tend to hold up well with newspaper reproduction, and this is achieved most consistently with supplementary lighting.

By the way, Ken DeLeon was one of the top 3 real estate agents in the country for 2011, in terms of dollar sales volume. Go Ken.