“Colorado National Guard Armory Shoot”

I had a great project come my way recently that involved shooting the new Colorado National Guard Readiness Center in Grand Junction, Colorado. I was contacted by the architectural firm CooverClark out of Denver to shoot the project for them as well as the contractor FCI and for The Colorado National Guard.

Timing was critical on the shoot for the fact that all the parties involved wanted the building photographed before the staff actually moved into the space and gave it that…..lived in look you could say. Again flexibly was key to scheduling.

The architectural firm emailed me site plans of the project with notes describing angles and composition that they wished to capture. These were then reviewed over the phone with Brian Duggan from  CooverClark in detail and a game plan was drawn up for the shoot.

When discussing the exteriors with Brian and asking if they should be shot in the day verse dusk I found out that the exterior lights on the building could not be overridden. I always like to have the option of turning on any exterior or landscape lighting a good hour before actual dusk for insurance. You never really know what a structure will look like until that magic hour……by have the lights on sooner than later it takes out the last minute factor of running around and getting lights on and bulbs changed.

To cover my bases I shot all of the exteriors twice. Once in  daylight and then again at dusk. After reviewing the images in post it was plain to see that the dusk images were stronger than the daylight and more dramatic.

One thing to note. My assistant got one heck of a workout on this shoot. As you can see in the above images all of the interior lights are on in the building. What you don’t see is my assistant running back and forth through the interior spaces keeping all the lights on. The whole buildings lighting system is run off of motion sensors to conserve energy…..so once a room is idol of movement out go the lights…..this is when a young fit assistant comes in handy. Who said photography is not a physical career?

“Samsonite Photo Shoot”

This shoot is a perfect example of never knowing when your phone might ring with your next interesting project. In this case I received a call on a Friday at five in the afternoon from the architectural firm Bergmeyer Associates out of Boston. They needed a photographer to shoot a project of theirs here in Colorado for a job they just completed for their client Samsonite. This was a new flag-ship store for Samsonite. I was informed that the shoot needed to take place the following Wednesday and that the Architect would be flying out for the shoot. I had know idea that when I arrived on location that not only the Architect would be on site but about twelve other personnel as well.

Just a few of the people on the shoot!

Not only was the Architect there, but several corporate folks from Samsonite were on site as well. With this large of a group of people in a store 30×60 it can make things a little tight to say the least.

Setting up our first shot.

Not only were we shooting for the Architect but we also had to keep  Samsonite and their products in mind. This is another example of a cost share. Both parties were splitting the fees for the photography. This was a great group of people and everyone worked in sync with one another with the common goal in mind. The shoot went without a hitch!

There was lots of running around placing product and lighting in just the right areas to highlight the bags to the clients liking. We needed to work quickly because the next shot would be a dusk image of the exterior of the building and as always the sun was a major factor.

Setup for the exterior!

After the exterior image was captured we were then able to slow the pace down just a little and turn our attention back to the interiors of the store.

Setting up for another interior.

The evening wrapped up at about 9:00 pm with several more interiors captured. Thankfully the store was closed on our behalf several hours earlier than normal so we could work without the interruption of shoppers. To be real honest though I really don’t think a few other people in the store would have bothered us at all!