Christmas House © Jay Goodrich

My wife told me to take her credit card to the store and get a bunch of lights to decorate the house. I decided to spare no expense, since it wasn’t my dime. I think there is a dog house in there somewhere that will be my home until it is time to clean it all up. Just kidding! We hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season. I can hear my daughter downstairs right now singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, so that is my que to go and have some “egg nog” –  translation = tequila. Oh and the house isn’t actually ours, it’s a house in West Seattle whose owners obviously love the holidays. Taken with my iPhone.

Private Residence Interior, Colorado © Jay Goodrich

I have been in Colorado for past week shooting a commercial  residential project. I was hired to create a major collection of images for the home owner, builder, and the architect. The images will be used for their portfolio and marketing pieces. Projects of this magnitude take a huge amount of planning and work to complete successfully. At one point, I had four assistants helping me move furniture, props, and equipment all over the house in order for us to finish the task at hand in the time allotted.

This house is a perfect blend of contemporary and mountain architecture, and the finishes are top of the line. It is very important for me to create imagery that responds to those details and provides the viewer with a glimpse of what it is like to experience a well thought out design like this one. This image is of the entry way into the residence, and it is the first thing that you experience as you walk into the house.

To achieve this image I used a mix of tungsten hot lights and an HDR blending technique in the computer before creating my final image that was adjusted for color and contrast. This image was created with a 1Ds Mark III, 24mm f3.5 tilt/shift lens, Gitzo tripod, Kirk Ballhead, and Lowel Pro-light lights. Shooting projects like this is a lot of work, but the rewards are worth much more.

Architectural Interior © Jay Goodrich

Many people want to know what I am doing at any given moment in time so I am trying to make that happen by adding more blog posts while I am working. Last night I was photographing a private residence for a commercial client in Colorado. I am not allowed to give names…well, I could but they would kill me, so here is the vague breakdown.

My client is a high-end custom painter and wood supplier. He has hired me to shoot a project that he has done almost all of the painting on interior and exterior wood work, as well as supplying all of the exterior wood material for the house. My job-to capture images for his marketing. So what do I look for? Interesting compositions that highlight what he has done. I am not necessarily going to capture architectural design ideas, nor am I going to setup in one corner of a room and include everything, I am there to capture details that the sub-contractor was responsible for creating. In the above image that happened to be the finish that was applied to all of the interior doors. If I were to just photograph the door, the image would have much less interest than if I included other elements. This house had a wonderful collection of artwork so I utilized that to my advantage. I chose to use the door to lead the viewers eye off into just a small part of the residence, giving just a small look to what else is there. When all was complete my assistant Brendan Russell and I shot 171 images for which only 10 will go to the client.

I shoot many aspects of photography and truly believe that if you think about the basics of light, composition, and clarity in every image that you create, your photographic opportunities will be limitless.

Some of you have noticed that I have not been adding content here for quite a while now. Well, I have been offline for a bit, traveling, working, and in general living like a caveman with the basics of fire and shelter-stay tuned for more on that in some up coming posts. Some of you also know that a main staple of my income is generated from commercially driven architecture photography. Many people ask me, “How does a nature photographer cope with the seemingly opposite professions, capturing images of nature that make a statement for its rescue, while also shooting structure imagery that shows nature being turned into something that is man-made?”

Let’s begin with the fact that I was an architect and a builder for close to two decades before actually realizing my dream of becoming a photographer. I have been responsible for the design of close to 50 projects, over half of which I personally built. The design and construction industry do not have to be professions that are against nature, they can peacefully coincide with and actually create nature as Bjarke Ingles demonstrates in the above TED video. When I was building, I always made a point to recycle as much material on a job site as possible and create a home that utilized as few natural resources as possible.

Now as a photographer, I recycle everything in my home and office, as well as live and work from a home that is set up to use less water, gas, electricity and is insulated extensively to eliminate heat loss and gain. I am also looking to work with clients that have those same ideals in mind. I have a client right now who is producing wood products for houses that are completely recycled from the downed beetle kill forests surrounding Vail, Colorado. We need to proceed with our lives and careers with a thought process that allows us to save, recycle, and generate nature. If we do and think in that manner for multiple aspects our planet will grow more profitable then ever imagined.

I love to see people like Bjarke pushing the boundaries when it comes to work. In the video he discusses how every idea leads to another idea and that nothing is ever thrown away. This is a great way to succeed as any creative individual, I don’t care what profession you working in, architecture, graphic design, photography, painting, etc. The more you expose your mind too, the more successful your creative journey will become and the more you will build on your past.