Recently I created a Google Virtual tour and commercial photos for Ridge Crossings, an amazing luxury apartment complex in Hoover. This was easily the largest complex I’ve ever seen and had the most amenities that I’ve ever seen. There’s a nature trail, a huge exercise facility, movie theatre, racket ball court, playground, tennis courts, grill pavilion with three grills, a huge clubhouse with free coffee, a dog park, a carwash facility, and two swimming pools! I’ve never even heard of such an apartment community, let alone photograph one!

Needless to say I had a lot of fun with this one. The Google tour covers the clubhouse and pool area, while the conventional still images cover the other areas, including a couple of model units. Out of all the features I will say that the movie theatre was my favorite. It was a special challenge to photograph. The black ceilings and windowless walls meant that it would be difficult to light in a way that wouldn't be harsh. I also wanted to convey the feeling that a movie theatre should provide. You don’t want a bright room for movie watching but I still needed to show what it was. The solution was to combine many exposures into one. I did an existing light image of the room as the base image. It was dark of course and you couldn’t really see much detail. That was ok, the next part of the process would fix that. I attached a speedlight (small flash unit) to a stick. It had a grid mounted to the front. This kept the beam of light from the flash narrow and only on the parts of the scene I wanted to light. I then lit each chair and each photo on the wall with individual flash bursts. All total it was about 20 photographs combined into one final image. The result is a photo that lets you see what the room is without compromising the mood of the space!

This is just one of the things that I do to create unique images to help my clients separate themselves from their competition. It’s a more time consuming process, both during the initial creation of the image, and in the computer post processing. I feel that the results speak for themselves!

Learn more about Ridge Crossings on their Google + page where you can see more photos and the virtual tour!

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