Dateline Ventura County, Jan 16, 2012. A crisp winter evening in Santa Paula, up on a ladder waiting for the sun to get out of the picture…
My latest glowing architectural photography project is the Santa Paula Housing Authority's new senior affordable housing project named "The Orchards at Santa Paula." This image was created for McCarthy Companies, the project manager on this development, and will grace the invitation for the grand opening and probably the websites of everyone involved.
It's a really cute place but it faces north, and while this may be great for photos in Australia this time of year, photography of north facing architecture in Ventura California is a real challenge. You can imagine the look on my client's face when I told them, "The best time to photograph your project is in six months at summer solstice… will that work for your grand opening invitation?"
Architectural photography in Southern California allows for a lot of sun-lighting variation but inevitably the south facing architecture is completed in summer and the north facing ones are ready in winter…
Must be Murphy's Law of solar frustration.
The solution is the always the same… "Wait 'til the sun goes down!"
As you can see from the afternoon photo…the backlit sunlight in the afternoon doesn't do The Orchards any favors, it's still a cute little project but it's not as warm and cozy as the dusk view. High-contrast sunlight on the back units, cool, low-contrast reflected light from the open sky on the shaded units in the foreground. Add dark windows and a blank cyan sky and it's pretty hard to get excited about any building in such unflattering light; and remember waiting for solstice is not an option since the grand opening is a week away. So with a ladder, a tall tripod, and cooperation from the staff to turn off sprinklers, remove the tree-stakes, and turn on all the lights, a very handsome photo was created with very little Photoshopping. Of course we had to stand around on-site waiting for the perfect moment, a window of twilight, the five minutes where the exterior sky and the interior lights match, before the sky goes black and the moment is gone.
Always happy to use available darkness whenever the sun is six months away.