Recently I was introduced by one of my Commercial Real Estate clients to a building owner as “the guy who does glamour shots of buildings”. I got a real kick out this for a few reasons. The easiest way for most people to associate photography seems to default to anything that has to do with people photography, namely, glamor or wedding photography. That’s how many laypeople think their Architectural Photography experience will be - there are more differences than similarities mind you. Also... Architecture Photography is hard for many to conceptualize. Maybe Building Glamour shots should be key search term for me? You heard it here first! Glamour Shots is what I do for my Commercial Real Estate clients- with how do you say it, a ‘well loved structure’. I tell a story by shooting the desired attributes of the building in a creative way. The whole idea is to create interest in the building over any other in its market class. Would it be nice to just shoot cutting edge, fresh LEED designed buildings? Yes. But even if I was a World Famous Architectural Photographer complaining about “shooting in Dubai again?”. I would still enjoy the challenge of shooting a “well loved building”. Old buildings have character and more stories to tell- and yes do need the occasional Photoshop band-aid. But this is just one niche that we as Architectural Photographers can focus on in finding our roots in. Here is a sample of the good, the bad, and the ugly (maybe not the ugly) that I have shot over the past few years: http://bit.ly/VziD7

So I photograph Architecture Exteriors and Interiors in the Sacramento Area for the majority of my living, can video be applied now? Guess what? Our still cameras’ have the functionality of HD video and our HD Video cameras’ has the functionality of stills. So yes, technically. For example my 5d Mark II can do both. So where does architectural still images play into all of this. Buildings don’t move so a non panning- non zooming video is pretty dull. This is where stills will always be needed. A concise one-shot in time summary of the architectural space. But hold on… What if there is a future in “Architectural Videography”. What if there is tasteful/skilled panning with little distortion (no more virtual tours oh darn…ha ha)? Think. Moving through a 3D space that is not computer rendered! Cool. Working with LED light instead of strobes. Cool! Video, architecture, and the future. Cool!