Holiday Message

Happy Holidays

and a

Prosperous New Year

from everyone here at

R2 Photography, LLC

TOP 10 Questions #6. How Long Should The Actual Shooting Take?

A rough estimate, not based on any details whatsoever, each view, each image takes approximately 45-90 minutes to prepare, stage, and shoot.

Whoa... that long? What in the world could take that long?

Survey - the photographer (and potentially yourself as the client) need to look over the scene, find the best angle, evaluate challenges and favorable aspects of each scene.

Set Up - the camera, tripod, and possibly lights need to be unpacked, set up, positioned, adjusted.

Staging - this can be as simple as picking up pieces of paper on the floor, or as advanced as adjusting the direction of every single wheel on each leg of a chair in a laboratory classroom... all 45 chairs, so all 180 wheels.

Final Composing - a myriad of adjustments need to be made in the camera itself, focusing, focal point, aperture, shutter speed.

Final Scene Adjustments - after looking through the view finder additional adjustments most likely will need to be made in the scene, pivoting furniture, adjusting foliage, etc.

Image Capture - generally more than one frame is shot of each view. There are a variety of reasons to do it this way. But depending on the photographer's approach, it can be as simple as having an insurance policy of more than one frame of each view.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com
866-722-9506

TOP 10 Questions #5. It’s OK to Give These Image to ______ to Use In Their Marketing, Right?

Absolutely not! And WHY would you do this? You have paid hard earned money for these images. Why would you let someone else get for free, something you had to pay for?

Similarly, you wouldn't want someone taking your design and selling it to someone else, and pocketing the money for themselves? You worked hard on those designs. You deserve to be compensated for them. You might want to pay the other party a commission on the sale, but you created what was being sold, you deserve the money for it.

Any copying, reproduction, distribution, public display or creation of derivative works of images without specific permission from the photographer is a violation of Federal copyright law. This includes putting them on your web site.

Simply having physical possession of photographs, slides, prints, transparencies or digital files does NOT grant the right to use them.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com
866-722-9506

Why Is All This Paperwork Necessary? All I Want Is Some Pictures!

As a business person, you know the fastest way for a project to "go south" is for there to be a difference in expectations between the parties involved. Even the smallest detail to one party, can be a major issue to another.

The best way to ensure a project's success is to thoroughly document everything. In the case of commissioning photography, this is achieved via signed Estimates, use of Terms and Conditions, a clear Usage/Licensing statement, Change Orders, and detailed Invoices. The more information you can provide to your photographer, including any prospective layouts the images are going to be included in or intended uses, the higher the odds your project will be a resounding success.

Your photographer is there to work with you, and wants the project to be a success as much as you do. So, if you're presented with documents and don't understand what you're looking at or reading, talk to your photographer. He or she will be happy to answer your questions and explain everything.

So, these documents are there to ensure the success of your project and are a sign you're working with a true professional.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com
866-722-9506

TOP 10 Questions #4. Why Doesn't My Print Have the Whole Image from the Contact Sheet?

Simple. Aspect ratio. On your contact sheet I provide the entire image as captured by the sensor in the camera. Aspect ratio is the ratio of the width of an image to the height. an 8x10 image has the same aspect ratio as a 16x20 images (one is exactly twice the size of the other). But both of these have a different aspect ratio than a 5x7. And all three of these have different ratios from an 11x14.

You didn't know you were in for a math lesson, did you?

But what it comes down to, if you want prints of your images, there is a strong possibility that some cropping will need to be done, on the longest side, in order to make the image fit the width of the paper size you have selected. But, you don't have to take equal amounts from each side, you can frame the image in the desired paper size, in the most visually favorable manner possible.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com
866-722-9506

TOP 10 Questions #3. Why Can't I Get My Images Today?

Snapshots, which aren't intended to grab the attention of potential clients and land you new projects, are ready at the time you snap the camera. But the types of images you need to set yourself off from the competition require at least some post processing. There may be some color cast adjustments, dust removal, cropping, or straightening needing to be done by your photographer or his/her post production expert.

However, taking advantage of digital media, you can also have your images look better than they ever were were possible with film. You can remove light switches and outlets, adjust isolated color casts, remove elements, digital stitching to create a panorama, just to name a few of the advanced post processing available to make your images show stoppers.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com
866-722-9506

TOP 10 Questions #2. What is this Licensing or Usage thing?

us·age [yoo-sij, -zij] –noun. Any manner of doing or handling something;

MYTH: Just because you have the physical image in your hands, or the file on the computer does NOT mean you own it and can do whatever you want with it, forever.

Just as it is with your designs, images are the intellectual property of the creator.

Usage is typically broken down into four main categories:

• - Commercial-refers to images that are used to sell or promote a product, service, or idea.
• - Editorial-refers to photography used for educational or journalistic purposes.
• - Advertising-any instance where you have paid to have your ad (and the image in question) placed in a magazine, journal,
• - Retail-refers to photography commissioned or purchased for personal use.

The difference between these categories is not in the type of photography, but in the use of the images. For example, suppose you hire a photographer to document project ground breaking event. For you, the type of photography being commissioned is event coverage, and the use is commercial because the corporation will use the photographs to promote your new project. However, if a local newspaper covers the same product launch, the use would be editorial.

Retail photography is for photography clients that are only desiring the images for their own personal use, such as a family portrait or a wedding. The client isn’t using it to promote themselves for monetary gain.

Regardless of how they are used, photographs are intellectual property, the same as an architect or designer’s creative designs.

Though your General Contractor physically has copies of your building design documents, you would never, ever consider letting them go to the local blueprint copy place, make as many copies as he/she likes, and then build additional building for client of their own with those plans, or resell those plans to other GCs. Well, at least not without compensating you significantly anyway.

It is the same for the images created by your photographer.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com
866-722-9506

TOP 10 Questions #1. What is Included in an Estimate?

Working in this industry, you understand the importance of accurately defining the scope of work in order to determine your firm's design fees. Similarly, in order to prepare an estimate for you, a photographer must have a detailed description of the assignment.

Though every photographer is different, typically an estimate has three components:

• Project Description
• Licensing Rights (Usage) Granted
• Pricing

Project Description

Including the name and location of the project additional information that will need to be included is the number of views, and the project timeframe, usually with a few milestones such as shoot date, and proof delivery date, final delivery date.

Also be sure to include your final image requirements as they relate to specific forms of media. Do you require transparencies, slides, black and white prints, color prints, electronic files or other specific deliverables? Remember to specify the sizes and quantities you will need.

Licensing Rights (Usage) Granted

An image is considered the intellectual property of the creator, the photographer. The photographer owns the copyright to the images he or she creates and is the only one who can license their use. This section of the estimate should very specifically answer these three basic questions:

• • Who will use the images?
• • How and where will the images appear?
• • How long will the images be used?

We tend to have our Usage information detailed in the Usage section of the Estimate, but some photographers have a separate licensing agreement document. If several parties choose to share in the cost of an project, each party is provided with a separate written licensing agreement unique to their specific needs.

It is vitally important that you and your photographer agree on the scope of a license before beginning the project. Should your marketing plans for the images change, be sure to discuss them with your photographer as soon as possible. This could save you money, because if you were planning on using the images in an advertisement, and now you are not, the cost of your usage fee will go down significantly.

Also, if you plan to share photographs with third parties who have not been involved in the commissioned assignment (e.g., members of the design team, contractors, consultants, product manufacturers, clients, tenants or magazine editors), permission must be obtained in writing from the photographer. Yes, oftentimes this will involve a cost, either to you or the third party, but, would you want someone to get something for free that you spent a lot of money to commission?

Also very important, you cannot give the right to use images to another person or firm without the written consent of the copyright holder, the photographer. You should also advise the party receiving the images to contact the photographer directly to secure a license granting permission for their use.

CAUTION: If you have received photographs from another person or firm, and you haven’t seen a document providing written permission for you to use them, it is YOUR responsibility to secure licensing rights before using them. When in doubt, contact the photographer before using the images.

Any copying, reproduction, distribution, public display or creation of derivative works of images without specific permission from the photographer is a violation of Federal copyright law.

Simply having physical possession of photographs, slides, prints, transparencies or digital files does NOT grant the right to use them.

Pricing

An estimate typically has two components:

• fees
• expenses

Fees

There are two kinds of fees:

- Production or Creative Fees-reflect the time it takes to complete the entire assignment. This includes intangibles such as the photographer's experience, creativity and vision that he or she brings to the assignment. Other variables include: the total number of views requested, travel time, scheduling and deadlines, site logistics, and artistic considerations such as vantage point, time of day and composition.

In addition to the actual time spent behind the camera, a photographer's pre-production and post-production time may also be included in the Production Fee. Pre-production tasks commonly include: client meetings, site visits, meetings with the facility's management to organize access to the location, conversations with building engineers to arrange technical assistance with lighting, landscape maintenance and other related site-specific preparation. Post-production tasks commonly include image editing and selection, digital enhancement, client meetings and preparing images for final delivery.

- Licensing (Usage) Fees-reflect the value of the usage for each image in the assignment. This is determined by a number of considerations including how widely the images will be viewed, reproduced and distributed. Typically, the more extensive the usage, the higher the fee. Similarly, the fee increases correspondingly with the number of unique views being used.

To obtain the best value at the outset, negotiate usage for the entire group of images based on your currently planned needs, with the understanding that additional rights and related fees for unique purposes can be arranged in the future.

Expenses

Expenses for film photography may include: material costs such as film, processing and supplies. For digital photography, they may include: image capture charges, file conversions, post-production charges, archiving, digital retouching and file delivery.

Additional expenses may include charges for assistant(s), travel, photo finishing, special equipment or prop rentals, stylists, costs for location access, models, special insurance and miscellaneous expenses.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com
866-722-9506

Top 10 Questions Our Clients Ask

We're starting a new series, based on the commonly asked questions we hear from clients. We hear these comments and questions over and over again, so hopefully they will be of help to you. Twice a month we post a new question and a detailed response.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com
866-722-9506

Saving Money on Your Photography

With today's economy, savings money is forefront of everyone's minds. It is easy to think putting off on marketing efforts, including photographing your projects, but when things are slow is the exact time you should be ramping up your marketing.

There are all sorts of ways to reduce the financial impact of photographing your projects:

- Share the Cost with Others. If you feel a building is worth photographing, your general contractor, vendors, interior designers, and even the building owner or occupant probably feel the same way. Here at R2 we encourage you to talk with other participants in a project and have the jointly commission the photography with you. When you do that, we divide your creative fees and expenses equally between the commissioning parties. Suddenly you have reduced those line items of the shoot by half, two thirds, etc. A signifiant savings. The only aspect of the shoot that is not split among participants is the usage fee. That is because each participant probably has different uses for the images. While one firm would want the images for web sites, corporate brochures, etc. another may want to use them in advertising.

- Plan Ahead, Be Flexible. The more flexibility you have in your shooting schedules and deadlines, the more inexpensive your project can be. If we are able to combine travel expenses with another project, both projects share in the savings. The more time we have to fit the project into our schedule, we also extend savings to our clients. Rush jobs, or quick turn around projects are exponentially more expensive.

- Shop Locally. By utilizing local talent for your photography needs, you're significantly reducing the travel costs for a project, pure and simple. It is an amazing phenomenon that out of town photographers are so much higher regarded, just because they are from "out of town." But, they are local to somewhere, so, there is a pretty good chance you have extremely talented photographers right nearby.

- Prioritize Views / Use Fewer Views. This is the toughest way to save on the costs of photography, you really want 10 images documenting all the features of the design in a structure, but your budget just can't absorb that many images. But reducing the number of images can save you across the board with photographer time on site, post production, usage fees on all the images.

- Multiple Projects. This can be a great way, with one caveat, be prepared to contract for the projects all at the same time. Here at R2 Photography we are thrilled to secure multiple projects with a client, and offer a discount on all the projects. The projects do not have to be shot one right after the other, but just have the projects on the books and the contracts signed. The reason we insist on all the projects being contracted at the same time, is, just like nearly every other photography firm on the planet, we have heard, "if you give us a discount on this first project, we will use you again on this one coming up" and… nothing happens with the second project.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com
866-722-9506

Usage - The Rental Car Analogy

It seems the item on my estimates I have to explain the most is Usage. So, hopefully this analogy will help explain.

When you rent a car, you sign a contract. On that contract you put yourself down as the driver. The daily rate in which you are charged for that car is based on you as the only driver.

If your spouse or business associate also may need to drive the car at some point, you put their name down too. However, that also increases the rate.

The contract is also for a specific amount of time. After that, you either have to return the car, or pay an additional fee.

If you have ever read the fine print on a rental agreement, you actually agree to only drive that car certain places. One of the places you agree not to drive typically mentioned is driving on "unmaintained roads." It also says you agree to abide by posted speed limits. You agree to keep the car in the United States.

Now, you have the car… but, just because you physically have possession of the car, that doesn't mean you own it. You can't sell it. You can't give it to someone else. You can't lend it to someone else.

So, by signing that contract you have agreed that you are the only user of the vehicle, you will only use it certain ways, you will not sell or give it away, and you will use it only for a certain time.

Believe it or not, in a general sense, this is a "Usage agreement" nearly identical to Usage on your photographer's Estimate.

By signing the contract you have agreed that you are the only user of the images, you will only use the images in certain ways, you will not sell or give away the images, and you will use the images only for a certain time.

Sound familiar?

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com

866-722-9506

Continuing the Alliance

Congratulations, you have found a photographer you like their work, their prices, and most likely, you like them. How do you stay in touch with them?

- Stay in Contact

- Join their mailing list

- Follow their blog

- Invite them to send in new work

- Future Project Estimates - Try to give the photographer as much lead time as possible for a project to ensure they can provide a thorough Estimate as well as give you priority scheduling in their calendars. By having them provide Estimates against other photographers your like their work will also ensure the pricing you are receiving is on standard with the industry.

Really Like Them - Consider a Multi-Project Contract

This will ensure they are there for you.

How to Get More “Bang for your Buck”

Provide Feedback.

Be sure to provide the photographer feedback on his/her images. These are business people the same as yourself, and if you, the customer, isn’t happy or would like to try a different approach, the photographer should be open to your suggestions.

Scrapbook

As you go through your business day/weeks, there are bound to be images of other projects that an angle catches your eye, a time of day/lighting, anything. Show these to your photographer. It will help him/her gauge your tastes and preferences, leading to increasingly successful projects in the future.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com

866-722-9506

Licensing Photographs for Publication

What is Licensing in General?

Licensing is a fee you pay to use the images a certain way. Unless it is specifically written into the terms and conditions of the contract for your photography project, the copyright / ownership for those images remains with the photographer. This is why you can't take your child's school pictures, or your family picture to Kinkos or Walgreens/Walmart and make copies, you're violating the copyright (ownership) of the photographer.

A great scenario to illustrate how this works. You design a building. You provide a copy of the plans to the General Contractor to build that specific building. Just because he has the plans in his hands does not mean he owns them. It certainly doesn't give him the right to make copies of the plans and either give them away, sell them, or use them to build other buildings from those plans. If he wanted to do this, he would have to pay your firm for use of the plans on another building. I am sure that selling or giving away the plans wouldn't fly under any circumstances. The plans are your firm's creative, intellectual property. It is the exact same thing with a photographer.

What Is So Different about Editorial Usage?

Editorial usage is when you use images in an article you wrote for a print or online publications, periodicals, journals and that includes books and ebooks as well.

Who Wins in Editorial Usage?

- Publication - the better the images in their publication, the more they can charge for ads because the prestigue of their publication increases

- Architect - advertising that exponentially cheaper than paid advertising, and it has a lot more credibility

Cost - Exponentially Cheaper than a Paid Ad

To find out how much an ad is worth, go to the publications web site and follow the links for advertisers to the Media Kit.

Example:

2008 full page ad in Architectural Record is $16,980

Why Isn't Editorial Usage Included in the Estimate?

Many photographers don't like selling you usage that you don't need. It is an unnecessary expense for you, and makes their rates look necessarilyly higher than another photographer that isn't offering it. The same goes for advertising usage. This is by far the most expensive rate of usage, and honestly, it is rarely used by architects. So, being good business people, the photographer don't want to sell you more than you need.

Issues That May Arise

These happen when the publisher, architect, and photographer have different expectations.

You submit an article with images to a publication for consideration.

You think you can submit those images as part of the submission because you have purchased usage and it includes editorial.

The publication thinks you have paid for that usage already from the photographer.

So, no one has paid for usage of the images.

This can lead to a stand off that no one wins.

Securing an Editorial License

Generally, it is the publication that received the most benefit from usage of the images, so they contact the photographer directly and pay a fee reflecting the value the images contribute to the magazine's success. Factors included: size, quantity, and placement.

Unfortunately, the publisher may refuse to pay this fee. It is in the publisher's interest to license the images at the lowest cost. Some more unscrupulous publishers will play hard ball with the photographer, and even try to put your firm in the middle by trying to make the photographer out to be the problem party. One thing to know, it is very rare that a publication cannot pay for a license, and if you hear that it can't pay it could potentially be a sign that the publication is about to fold. Another claim a publication will make to help you put pressure on the photographer is that they never pay for editorial rights to images. This nearly always is untrue as the rights licenses is a very small part of their publication costs.

What If The Publication Refuses to Pay?

Option - your firm pays for the editorial-use license. be wary though, you will have no idea how an future publisher or art director at a publication may use the images, and the photographer would want to write the license to cover a wide range of possibilities and charge accordingly.

Value of a Photo Credit

Both architects and photographers have a lot in common here. Architects like seeing their names on the dedication placard, but they still expect to be paid for their design services. Photographers view a credit line the same way. It may increase their chances of future work, but it is not payment for work that has been completed.

Best Practice

When you start talking with a publisher about a story, be sure to address who will be responsible for securing the licensing rights for the supporting images.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com

866-722-9506

Image Delivery

This can depend on a multitude of variables, as well as the methodology of the individual photographer. But most importantly, if there was a serious time consideration, this should have been disclosed to the photographer at the time the Estimate was requested.

Time Frame

This is greatly dependent on the number of images in your shoot, specific deadlines requested at the time of Estimate, and the workload of the photographer’s studio itself. Your photographer should provide you an estimated date of delivery of proofs (whether online or hard copy) within 1-2 business days of the shoot. Just a basic rule of thumb on the typical processing time images not requiring extensive post production efforts is two to twelve hours for each image, so if you have a five image shoot and taking an average of that, you could potentially be looking at 30 man hours in post production, so, potentially a week.

Online Contact Sheets

For ease of review, and sharing among many parties within your firm, many photographers provide online contact sheets to their clients. From these contact sheets, final delivered images can be selected. However, some clients still prefer to have a physical contact sheet delivered. If this is your preference, be sure to tell that to the photographer at the time you’re asking for the Estimate.

Final Images

There is a wide variety of image delivery options available to you:

• Electronic Download - final image files can easily be downloaded directly from a photographer’s web site
• DVD Delivery - a physical DVD with all the final images delivered to your office
• Hard Copy Delivery - a hard copy print(s) created by the photographer
• Combination - some clients prefer a combination of two or more of the above delivery options of the final images

Image Storage

Though your photographer undoubted is going to maintain a copy of your images, to be absolutely safe that you always have access to your images, the best approach is maintaining your own catalog.

The industry standard for Digital Asset Management (yes, DAM) is the 3-2-1 approach.

• Three (3) copies of the images
• Two (2) different onsite drives or media (one hard disk/server, one DVD, or two hard disks)
• One (1) offsite copy. These files can be maintained on either a hard disk, back up service, DVD media, etc.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com

866-722-9506

Post Production

OK, you’ve chosen the photographer, received the estimate, photographed the project, since there isn’t any film processing involved anymore, you should have your photographs immediately when you leave the shoot, yes? Not quite.

Basic Digital Processing

The extent in which post production processing takes place on your images depends on a lot of factors, including what special treatment the images require as determined in the Estimate. But nearly every photographer (or their digital production staff), at minimum, performs the following actions on their images:

• Imports them into their digital asset management system. This includes cataloging your images as well as inserting permanent digital text information (meta data) into the images.
• Basic retouching for minor imperfections including dust on the sensor, flaws on the site.
• Applying subtle changes in contrast/color balance/tone to ensure all the images appear to have the identical color cast and exposure.

Advanced Digital Enhancement

Depending on the specific services outlined in the Estimate, additional image enhancement can be applied:

• Light Color Temperature Adjustment. Sometimes there are multiple light sources with different color temperatures in one image. Lighting brought onto location, as other on site techniques, used by the photographer should minimize this impact, but sometimes it is easier and more cost effective to perform final adjustments digitally back in the studio.
• Removal of Distracting Elements. In the magic of the digital world it is more possible than ever to get rid of distracting slight switches, outlets, faceplates, plumbing, cords,
• Merging Multiple Exposures. This technique is commonly referred to as High Dynamic Range (HDR) and allows the photographer to take multiple images of the same scene at different exposures and merge them into one image. This allows for increased detail in highlights and shadow areas, and, for example, minimizes burn outs from over exposure from strong lighting coming in a window.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com

866-722-9506

Schedule/Timing/Duration of Shooting Images

Ideally, the order in which images are taken needs to be established before arrival on the location and can easily be established by some kind of scouting. Natural lighting through windows, on exterior faces, etc. can determine what order images will be shot in. As a very rough rule of thumb, each individual image can take from 45 to 90 minutes to set up, properly stag with props and furniture arrangement, and photograph. However, some of the highest end architectural photographers can take several hours for set up, primarily to position lighting. I know of one of the top photographers that can has been known to use 200+ lights on a single image and it took eight hours to achieve his single, award-winning shot.

Photography Staging Area

Talk with the photographer about what kind of staging area needs are required. He/she will need space for cases, lighting assembly, and, if the photographer doesn’t work with their camera tethered to a display, a workstation to review images after the shot. Depending on the amount of equipment and props required, these needs can be just a few square feet, but generally average about 10x10.

Your Input - How Much Are You Involved?

Photography is a collaborative effort, but how this is handled varies from photographer to photographer. My approach is working with you, listening to your vision for the image, your preferences, learning what you’re trying to achieve with an image, etc. helps me create an image that hopefully exceeds your expectations. But just like you are a specialist in your field, we are as well, and bring unique experience and creativity to the process as well. If it were easy to just press a button and capture incredible images, you could bring in a high school student or someone from your administrative staff with a good camera.

Potential “Don’ts” When Working With A Photographer

This is varies from photographer to photographer:

• Touching Equipment. Just from a liability standpoint, if you were innocently shift a tripod or a light stand, and it were to fall over... well, you get the picture.
• Looking Through the View Finder/Touching the Camera. Some photographers absolutely don’t like this at all. With more and more photographers shooting tethered, you will be able to see the image instantaneously as soon as it is shot anyway. Besides, again, would you want to accidentally knock over that camera that potentially is worth more than some used cars?
• “Saying Anything But “Yes.”  I saw this written on another architectural photographer’s web site as something some photographers demand - and they were referred to as prima donnas. Personally if you were always saying yes to me, I would be worried that you weren’t completely involved in the project, and we might not be accomplishing your vision.

Whether you were there or not, and whether we are your photographer on a project or not, if you have any questions or comments about commissioning architectural photography, please feel free to drop us a line anytime. We'd be happy to help!

Kimberly Blom-Roemer
Photographer
R2 Photography, LLC
r2-photography.com

866-722-9506