Interiors

Adams & Gerndt - Mountain Brook AL Architectural Photographer /  by Tommy Daspit

Twilight exterior of the rear and pool. This is one of the most extensive remodel projects I've ever seen. Hard to comprehend the before with the after! 

So much amazingness in this project!

This was a remodel in Mountain Brook of a truly epic nature. My client, Adams & Gerndt Architecture in Homewood, did a truly phenomenal job transforming this home. The before images are truly mind blowing. It’s hard to believe that it is the same house. 

Of course I was totally excited when I walked through the door to see this modern creation inside. I don’t see very many like this in the Birmingham area. In the living room, a huge wall of windows flooded the space with amazing natural light. The kitchen featured an amazing kitchen with clean lines, bright cabinets, and one of the coolest looking islands I’ve ever seen. I knew this would be a special project for sure!

It turns out that Birmingham Magazine thought so too. They featured my image of the living room on the cover of the 2018 Home and Garden Issue with a six page article!

Birmingham Magazine Home and Garden Issue 2018

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Architect: Adams & Gerndt Builder: Twin Construction Interior Design: Defining Home

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Forest Remodel - Homewood Al Residential Interiors Photography /  by Tommy Daspit

Twilight Exterior of Susan Gordon's Homewood Alabama home. It won best in Show in the Greater Birmingam Homebuilders Association Remodel competition.

Twilight Exterior of Susan Gordon's Homewood Alabama home. It won best in Show in the Greater Birmingam Homebuilders Association Remodel competition.

I’ve been looking forward to sharing this project for quite some time! I photographed this project (the remodeled home of the famous Susan Gordon of Susan Gordon Pottery) back in February. I had to hold off posting about it until the article about it was published this month in Birmingham Magazine. Although it won Best in Show for the 2018 Greater Birmingham Homebuilders Association remodeling competition and was published in their quarterly magazine, it’s customary to hold off posting about a project when there’s a pending article on it.

There was so much awesomeness in this project that it’s no surprise that it won awards and much acclaim. It was a joint project with Willow Homes, Willow Design Studio (Katherine Bailey Designer), Chickadee Interiors, and of course, the amazingly talented Susan Gordon herself. I especially loved the kitchen.The open space with the living and dining rooms with the kitchen provided some fun challenges but I think we captured the essence of the space well. I especially loved the combination of traditional cabinetry with the open shelves that showcased Susan’s craftwork. I employed nearly every technique in my arsenal to control and enhance the natural light in the space to capture the feeling of being there. I’m very proud of that my images helped Willow Homes and Willow Design capture the Best in Show award for the remodeling competition. Ultimately my job is to help my clients showcase their hard work with the highest possible quality images. That it was award winning and showcased by Alabama Homebuilder and Birmingham Magazine only validates all that went into creating those images.

I’m honored to have been a part of capturing this amazing remodel and proud of my clients, and my team for all of their hard work!

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Birmingham Magazine July 2018

Alabama Homebuilder Magazine Spring 2018

Watters Architecture - Pass Christian Ms - Architectural Photography /  by Tommy Daspit

It had been raining all the way from Birmingham to Pass Christian and we wanted to get the twilight done that evening so we could drive straight back the next day. Things were looking bleak until about 20 minutes before we go there. Then the rain st…

It had been raining all the way from Birmingham to Pass Christian and we wanted to get the twilight done that evening so we could drive straight back the next day. Things were looking bleak until about 20 minutes before we go there. Then the rain stopped and we got some great light! 

This comes as a bit of a surprise to many, but I actually do a lot of travel. I’m perfectly happy to go wherever I’m needed. I can go by plane, train, or even automobile (I actually put about 30,000 miles on my car a year). I often do shoots in Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and throughout Alabama. So when I was contacted by Leah Watters of Watters Architecture in Pass Christian Mississippi about photographing one of her amazing projects, I was all too happy to help out!

I grew up in New Orleans but my grandparents had a home in nearby Waveland Mississippi. So I spent many a summer day on beaches very much like the ones right in front of this house. The instant I opened the car door it was almost like I’d been transported 30 years into the past. Much had changed over that time but much was still the same. Katrina and commerce had done much to change the landscape but the smells and feel of the ocean air were just as they’d always been. I knew this was going to be a special shoot.

The home was originally built by architect James Lamantia in 1940 and was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Leah was hired by the new owners to renovate and add on to the home in 2016. I was honored to photograph her work, which did so much to enhance and modernize the original design, while staying true to its spirit. It had actually been photographed once before by another photographer. Leah felt that the images she had really didn’t represent the project well. She wanted higher quality images that reflected the quality of her work. I was happy to accept the challenge of course!

We shot over the course of two days but I could have easily shot for two more. Every room held potential for great images. Narrowing it down was quite a challenge. In the end I took more images than I normally would. This caused a bit of a larger than normal workload in post but I was happy to put in the extra time for such a great project. I think the results speak for themselves!

 

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Willow Homes Craftsman - Birmingham AL Architectural Photographer /  by Tommy Daspit

As with most of my images, this one is a blend of strobe and ambient light. I really liked the quality of light and shadow being created by those fantastic plantation shutters. My assistant Crys is actually outside with a large strobe on a light stand shooting light into the window. This allowed me to embellish the natural light and give it more contrast.

Another great house by Willow Homes and Willow Design but this one was a little bit of a departure for them. Until this home in Crestwood area of Birmingham, I’d never photographed a home of theirs outside of Homewood. It’s great to see them expanding beyond their niche market and into Birmingham, Mountain Brook, and beyond! Wherever it is, I’m always thrilled to work with Jason, Katherine, Allison, Lizzy, and the entire Willow team. Every project has great portfolio opportunities for me and I love seeing them grow as a company! This Craftsman inspired home was no exception. I loved every aspect of this project but I must say that the master bathroom and kitchen were some of my all time favorites. I am super jealous of the matte finished appliances. They just look amazing and are much easier to maintain than stainless steel. Then there’s the contrast of black and white for the master bath. I’ve never seen a tub like that and how it all came together with simplicity and class is so impressive!

Silde back and forth to see the straight out of camera image and final edited image

Each final image is a composite of multiple images. I blend ambient images with ones lit by my strobes. In this case I have a strobe outside the left window to add contrast to the natural light. There's another one behind the camera filling in the foreground. In Photoshop I remove anything that distracts from the finished design and balance the colors with a calibrated reference target.

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Office Environments - Birmingham AL Commercial Interiors Photography /  by Tommy Daspit

Click on image to view larger - Conference room at Office Environments in Birmingham. This shot was particularly difficult due to the large windows and all the reflections in them. I utilized several techniques to control them. The final image is a combination of multiple ambient and strobe exposures.

I recently photographed the newly remodeled showroom of Office Environments in downtown Birmingham. This is a shoot that I’ve been looking forward to working on and showing off for some time. When I first saw the remodel late last year I knew it was a project I wanted to capture. My residential portfolio is quite extensive but my commercial work is more limited. This is especially true for interiors. Fortunately for me one of Office Environment’s reps is in my BNI (Business Networking International), and we were able to work out a deal!

I really loved every aspect of this space. It’s in a historic downtown building and showcases some of the very best in modern office furniture design. As a Herman Miller dealer everything is top notch quality and style. It was my job to capture the feeling of this showroom and business in photographic form. These images would be used by Office Environments on their website, social media, marketing materials and advertisements. These images will represent them to potential clients and partners. I needed to make sure they captured the quality of not only the furniture, but Office Environments, and the great people that work there as well.

This was to be a little different as well because we did the shoot at night after they closed. This gave me a great opportunity to have some images with a very different look from the rest of my portfolio. Most images I create are done with a mixture of sun and ambient light. Night images take out the sun variable but add a new layer of complexity. There’s much more heavy lifting to be done by the strobes and I had to be careful not to make the images look too “flashy”. The resulting images are a blend of multiple shots blended together. Some are as few as three all the way up to the office overview which is about twenty. 

In the end with a lot of help from my assistant Crys and Blake Stringer from Office Environments we were able to pull it off!

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See more of my commercial interiors portfolio.