Recent Work-2950 Alexis Drive, Palo Alto Hills

Here is an exterior photo from a recent real estate marketing job. The front exterior is often one of the "money" shots for marketing homes, and is sometimes the most important shot. This photo was used for the cover of the marketing brochure for this listing, and as the lead photo for some of the ads.

In this case I was able to photograph this home at an ideal time of day for the front of the home, with the sunlight falling at an angle directly on the scene. This kind of lighting creates attractive shadows which provide a sense of depth and bring out the structural and decorative details of the architecture. This is also excellent lighting for showing off the attractive and extensive landscaping. 

2950 Alexis Drive-Front Elevation

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.

Recent Work

Here are a couple of photos from a recent shoot of a spanish-style home in Los Gatos, CA.

947 Van Auken Circle-Palo Alto Eichler Home for Sale

Here is an image I shot for a recent real estate listing for an Eichler home in Palo Alto.

This became a pending sale in under 2 weeks.  Here is the website for the property: www.947vanauken.com.

The Tobin-Clark Estate-Hillsborough, CA

I recently had an opportunity to create marketing photos for the real estate listing of a large, historic estate in Hillsborough, CA, at 40 Verbalee Lane.  Known as the Tobin-Clark estate, it was built around 1930 and was designed in the Tudor style by the noted architect David Adler. The mansion is approximately 32,000sf, and the estate is approximately 6 acres. My clients were Randy Eyler and Pat Briscoe of Alain Pinel Realtors. Here are some highlights.

Front Elevation

Rear Elevation

Side Elevation

Rear Exterior

Pool

Solarium

Music (Living) Room

Dining Room

Foyer

Library

Office

In terms of the process, this was not a typical real estate photography shoot. Due to the size of the property and the desire for more consistently high quality from image to image than for normal real estate photography, I shot this over two days to deliver 22 images, and I used an assistant for the day I spent shooting the interiors, to help move equipment, furniture and decor. Normally, for real estate photography, I will spend approximately 1.5 to 4 hours at a property (depending upon the size of the property and the number of images I am to deliver), without an assistant, to create somewhere between 12 and 25 images. Aside from allowing me more time to light and arrange the interiors, the more involved process allows me more time to shoot all of the scenes when the ambient lighting is more favorable, since no part of a building that receives any significant amount of ambient daylight will have good daylight at all parts of the day. Even though I have the capability to use supplementary lighting, I generally prefer to use as much of the ambient lighting as I can, if that lighting is of reasonably high quality. I would also like to point out that high quality ambient lighting does not necessarily mean bright lighting. I can sometimes create high quality photos in very low-light conditions, without any supplementary lighting, as long as the basic quality of the ambient lighting is good.

I also spent more time processing and retouching some of the images than I would for a normal real estate photography job. Overall, this job was closer to what I would do for an architect or interior designer.

Updated Eichler Kitchen in Greenmeadow

A shot of a kitchen in an Eichler Home in the Greenmeadow section of Palo Alto.

New Website

I just changed the format of my website and made some changes to the portfolios. Please have a look: www.eichlerphoto.com

Recent Work

Here are photos from a recent real estate listing shoot for 700 Benvenue Avenue, Los Altos, CA, for Ken DeLeon, Keller Williams, Palo Alto, who, by the way, is on track to be the number one real estate agent in the US this year, in terms of dollar volume.

This was a fun one because it was very well staged and I got to do some nice twilight shots. Have I mentioned how much I like to do twilights?

And here is a double page ad for the listing in the Palo Alto Weekly.

The Oriental Warehouse, San Francisco

Several months ago I had the opportunity to shoot some photos for a real estate listing at the Oriental Warehouse, in the south of Market Street section of San Francisco, at 650 Delancey Street. It is a 19th Century brick warehouse that has been converted into live/work lofts.  I love shooting this kind of the thing.  Here is a shot of the lobby.