Yacht races, Chinese houses, and an upcoming exhibit!

I'm booking out shoots through the end of the year now, so it isn't too late to get on my schedule. Time is running out for exteriors, though, as the leaves will fall off the trees before you know it!

You’re invited! I have two photos in the Newton Camera Club exhibit at West Newton Cinema! One is a detail of the Yin Yu Tang house at the Peabody Essex Museum (see below) and the other is a beautiful portrait of a father and baby. Not my usual architectural work! Please join me and about 25 other photographers with over 60 images at the Opening Reception Nov. 4 from 3-5pm at West Newton Cinema. The show will be up at the cinema from Nov. 4 to Dec. 31.

Yacht racing, Car Show, Recent Shoots

What does a photographer do on her day off? Take more photos!

My brother-in-law was visiting in May and he loves the Volvo Ocean Race. The Volvo Ocean Race is a round-the-world yacht race held every three years. This year it stopped in Newport, RI, so we went to see it!

Thank goodness it was a rainy day – so the crowd was just large instead of enormous. There was a spot set up where you could see the racers heading to the boats. My brother-in-law is a photographer too, but he didn’t travel with his best camera, so I brought my longest lens and we pretended he had hired me to take photos for him that day – it was fun. I morphed into a sports photographer and got this shot below of the winning MAPFRE team, captained by Xabi Fernández.

To see some really stunning yacht racing photos, check out Newport photographer Onne van der Wal.

Summer for me is the time for classic car shows. I’m not into the engines so much as the beautiful designs cars used to have. Now we put a premium on aerodynamics for fuel economy, which is so much better, but I do love to see how crazy or crazy-beautiful the old designs were. Below is a Nash Ambassador Custom I saw recently at the Waltham Lions Car Show. I love the way the light shows the smooth curves of the car.

I also kept busy with lots of work over the summer and into the fall! Here are some recent shots - Vivo Apartments in the Kendall Square area of Cambridge, and a residential back yard designed by landscape architect Terry Kinsler.

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 also enjoy shooting corporate events. Do you have a holiday party or annual meeting coming up? Perhaps you'd like photographs for social media!

PHOTO TIP OF THE MONTH: TAKING PHOTOS HAND-HELD

How do you take sharp pictures when you don't have a tripod handy, or are shooting moving subjects or in a dark environment?

• Keep your shutter speed high enough - a good guideline is to use a shutter speed that is at least 1/ the focal length you are using. For example, if you are using a 24mm lens, you should be able to shoot handheld as slow as 1/24th of a second. Shooting at 300mm, you'd better keep your shutter speed faster than 1/300th of a second.

• Crank up your ISO. Don't be afraid to use ISOs up to 800 or even 1600, depending on the age of your camera. Most images from newer cameras are not too noisy with higher ISOs. A higher ISO can allow you to get the faster shutter speeds you need for handheld.

• Open up your aperture or zoom in with your feet so your focal length isn't as long. You will lose depth of field with a wider aperture, but it will allow you to get at least your subject sharp enough.

• Steady yourself by keeping your elbows in, having a wider stance, leaning against something, and controlling your breathing. Even if you are just using your phone for photos, you can make yourself more steady to get sharper pictures in low light.

Not too late to join the NAIOP Bus Tour next Wednesday!

Spring is in full swing! I am loving this weather the wonderful grass and trees and flowers it brings. This is my May newsletter, so why am I sending it out in June? Because all my clients have kept me so busy! Thank you!!

Please remember you can unsubscribe from my newsletter anytime by clicking on “unsubscribe” at the bottom.

Don't Miss the NAIOP Bus Tour Next Wednesday!

One of my clients is NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development organization, as I’ve mentioned before. They once again chose me to take photos of Boston-area architecture, especially new buildings, for the bus tour. It is a privilege to get to do it – they give me a list of all the exciting new projects happening in the Boston area, and I get to preview them and take photos before everyone sees the projects on the bus tour. NAIOP uses my photos in the glossy spiral-bound guide to all the buildings we will hear about on the tour, and in banners displayed at the morning speaking event before we board the buses.

There is still time to sign up to take the NAIOP Bus Tour on June 6th!

More cores are going up in the Seaport all the time.

This year we will be touring Post Office Square including Congress Square, the Seaport, South Boston, Dorchester, South End, Fenway, and Allston/Brighton. The tour is a combination of time spent on the actual buses touring while local experts point out notable commercial real estate changes to each area, plus stops at specific buildings for tours and talks on foot. The stops this year include One Post Office Square, The Beat (Boston Globe), Landmark in the Fenway, and Boston Landing.

One of the neat new developments happening now is Congress Square. It is just north of Post Office Square and south of the Old State House. They’ve put a glass top on one of the historic buildings, and I think it looks pretty cool! Plus they are restoring the old buildings on that block while updating the interiors.

It is sort of like the building is wearing a little glass hat, and it also echoes the glass building across the street (Exchange Place), blending the old and the new. Keep an eye on this development – they will be putting shops and restaurants in the little alley between buildings called Quaker Lane.

Back to the NAIOP Bus Tour - At Boston Landing, there will be tours of the Warrior Ice Arena, the commuter rail station, office/lab space, and new residential developments, followed by lunch.

Then we’ll have an after party at Avison Young at 200 State St. The whole event runs from 7am to 4pm and there is lots of time for networking included.

Guess where this new hotel is? This used to be the Days Inn on Soldier’s Field Road! It is now the Studio Hotel Allston, a boutique hotel. They have a pretty colorful lobby.

The NAIOP Bus Tour is a great way to learn about what is happening in Boston in the building industry, and also a great way to see new architecture going up. Join us next week!

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.

Have you ever gotten a bounce from my elisif@elisif.com email? If you ever have trouble, a good backup is elisif@gmail.com or contact me through the form on my website. Also, did you know there is a new Chihuly glass sculpture in town? It has actually been here for a few years, but you may not have seen it since it is in the lobby of a new residential building in the Seaport, 100 Pier 4. If you go into their lobby, they may let you take photos.

PHOTO TIP OF THE MONTH: Printing Photos – What to Consider

When you are printing photographs, either your own or professional photos used as part of a marketing piece, keep in mind these things to look out for:

• Printed photos often look darker than they do on your screen. This is partly inherent to the media – your screen is backlit so it gives the photos a nice glow. A print relies on reflected light, and so you may need to brighten a photo for printing.

• Photos often lose contrast when printed – I usually boost the contrast so they really pop off the page when printed.

• The type of paper you use makes a big difference in how a printed photo comes out. On matte paper, photos can look flat and low contrast. Fine art paper brings a certain depth to the images. Glossy paper can be great for shiny subjects. No matter what the paper, make adjustments after doing test prints so the photos come out their best.

• Ask for a proof – if using a commercial printer, ask for a proof to make sure they are keeping an eye on the quality. They do such high volume work, they may miss things that you could point out in a proof – things they can fix for the final version.

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/