Photographing a luxury home is not always the plum assignment people expect. For some reason, the photographer’s schedule and needs are not always the top priority of the home owner! Having to work around the comings and goings of a busy household is a challenge, but one that I have to deal with on a regular basis. This brings out the problem solver and expectation setter in me. Challenges such as:  difficult lighting, uncontrollable traffic, lack of stager, and time constraints must be met with a confident calm. Gently setting expectations is also important because the client needs to understand the limitations placed on the photographer by not allowing better control of shoot conditions. Having said that, nobody cares about excuses. When the they see the end result, they aren’t thinking about the myriad of details that go through my mind for each shutter press, they only want to see amazing pictures. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating “at it’s heart, photography is really multi-plane problem solving.”  I think my travels around the world have helped me in this regard.  I have visited many corners of the globe where waiting for ideal circumstance was not an option.  I had to make do with what was there, and create the best photograph possible in the given situation.  This is what people usually do when taking snapshots without even thinking about it, but when you call yourself a photographer, people expect more.

The initial appraisal of a scene, and the machinations in my mind to create a photograph are difficult to reproduce.  I have even found on occasion, when the opportunity to revisit a location under better conditions yields no improvement.   Of course, the opposite can also be true for particularly difficult situations where the results of the initial encounter were truely horrible.  Fortunately, the results of such encounters are rarely shared.  The attached photo is an example of a shoot that was conducted under a bit of duress.  The situation was less than ideal and the amount of time I had to shoot the very large property was extremely short, but another version of this shot made the cover of a luxury home magazine which featured this property in it’s first edition.  I live for these challenges, but occasionally, I would like to be like Austin Powers, and have someone catch my camera when I’m spent.