Twilight exterior of the front. From the huge windows, amazing exterior lighting, to the landscaping, everything about this home made for a tremendous twilight opportunity (I especially loved the translucent garage doors)!

A couple of years ago I was looking to expand the diversity of my portfolio. I wanted to have some more modern luxury homes in my book. Surprisingly there aren’t a large number of those in Birmingham! So I searched far and wide and came upon Rusty Alexander and Alexander Modern Homes in Muscle Shoals. I reached out to him about photographing some of his projects and thankfully he decided to give me a shot! Now two years later I’ve photographed all of his projects and we continue to work together. Each one of his builds takes a considerable amount of time to complete but the finished product is nothing short of phenomenal. Everything about them is of the very highest quality and style. They work with architect Phil Kean and have their own interior design firm, Riverworks Design Studio, run by Rusty’s wife, Lisa.

This month the Alabama Home Builders Association did a profile of Alexander Modern Home’s unique business model for their quarterly magazine. They featured many of the images I’ve created of Rusty’s projects. This home got the most attention and it even got the cover! I will say that it was a good choice. This home is one of my all time favorites. There was so many incredible image possibilities. We spent two full days there and I could have shot for a week. It was hard narrowing down the shots we were going to do. Every room was unique and full of possibilities. With the help of Lisa, Kayleigh, Rusty, my assistant Crys, and the rest of the Riverworks team, we narrowed down the shot list. We then worked to style, compose, and prop each shot. On some images we spent as much as an hour working out the styling, lighting, and composition.

I think the end results of all that time and attention to detail speak for themselves!

The Home Builders Association of Alabama did a story on Rusty and the Alexander Modern Homes team. They used a lot of images from this shoot including the cover! I'm very proud to showcase their amazing work!

Lisa said that they actually designed the rest of the house around the stone sink in the powder room. The antiqued mirror made for quite a challenge for this shot (notice that you don't see the camera).

There's really no one else in the state building them like Rusty!

Behind the scenes of the panoramic view of the living room and main kitchen. I used a Canon 24mm TS-E (Tilt Shift) lens.This allowed me to take a series of images from left to right and "stitch" them as a panorama. Tilt shift lenses are a must for architectural photography. They allow control of horizontal and vertical lines.

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See more of my residential photography portfolio

Alexander Modern Homes - Florence AL / January 24, 2017 by Tommy Daspit

Twilight exterior of the front of the home. There's a lot of dramatic exterior lighting on this home and I wanted to make sure I captured it in a way that really conveyed how it looked in person. This is a composite of 13 total exposures. The s… — Twilight exterior of the front of the home. There's a lot of dramatic exterior lighting on this home and I wanted to make sure I captured it in a way that really conveyed how it looked in person. This is a composite of 13 total exposures. The sky was not replaces but I did green the lawn and added trees where the leaves had fallen off.

I love working with Alexander Modern Homes and Riverworks Design Studio in Muscle Shoals. By far they build some of the most unique homes in Alabama! This home in Florence that I photographed in October is no exception. The Frank Lloyd Wright (the only FLW home in Alabama is also in Florence) influence is unmistakable.

These homes pose unique challenges from a photography standpoint. The materials, angles, shadows, and light are like nothing else I photograph. It’s my job to capture the vision of the architect, workmanship of the builder, styling of the designer, and details by individual artisans in a way that move a potential client.

It all begins with a conversation with my client. What do they want to showcase? What are the aspects of the project that are unique? What are they going to be doing with the images? Based on the answers to those questions, and taking into account the clients other marketing materials, I start to formulate a shoot plan. Whenever possible I like to scout the location ahead of time. This way I know where the sun will be, what areas need to be photographed at what time? Given this was about 2.5 hours away I relied on scout images the builder (Rusty Alexander) sent me and an app called Sun Surveyor. This allows me to see where the sun will be virtually and is a huge help in planning. Once I’m on location I walk through with the client to talk about what and how we’re going to shoot (my amazing assistant Crystal is hard at work setting up the gear). Then as were shooting I work with the client to refine each image. They can actually follow along with an iPad in real time. The end goal is to provide my client with images that they can use to promote their business. Images that will convey their professionalism and quality. I take this responsibility seriously and I hope that comes through in the quality of images I provide!