Phoenix isn’t so bad…..?

Yesterday we finally got out of the cold for a bit.  I know, cold is a relative term and I’m not as tough as I used to be living in New England.  I’ll give you that.  But it’s been chilly here in Prescott again and I’m dreaming of warm sandy deserts to the south of us.  18 degrees F here this morning.  Brrrrr.

While we were with our clients I took a few minutes to walk through and take some images of their office. And no, that’s not what they had us down there for, but I wanted to have a little fun with their newly renovated office space!

Currently my good friends Bert & Janie Gildart are hiding out in a warm sandy desert, and hopefully soon we’ll be off to visit them for a few days and wear shorts again!

This office was full of curves and straight lines. I had a little fun experimenting to be sure.

Half the day was spent in the Scottsdale area, and no not at the PGA event.  Instead we visited with clients about an upcoming shoot.  I’ve been getting ready for this for weeks now, and we finally had the time to meet up and chat a bit.  And with yesterday’s meeting wrapped up it’s pretty clear to me.  The Airstream is going to be spending some time in the Phoenix area.

What I like the most when doing interiors is balancing the image so that detail comes through the windows. Normally you won’t get the detail, so super mild HDR was used here to get all the lighting, indoor and outdoor. Love the windows!!!

Now, I’ve never been a super big fan of Phoenix.  Of course, most of my trips down there were in the summer months, and wow that’s hot!  Right now given the chill I’m feeling maybe 110 would be okay for a day.  At the present time though, temperatures down there aren’t so bad.  Traffic is still bad, even on a Saturday morning.  Ah well, trade offs.

I can only imagine how calming it must be for patients to sit in a dentist chair looking out at beautiful mountain scenery.

For all of my readers out there who are RV’ers and have spent some time in the Phoenix area……  Any suggestions on a good park that is not right in the city area?  We’ve been pouring through parks to contact regarding website rehabs, and we’ve got a sizable list.  What we’re lacking is first hand “on the ground” information from anyone who has stayed in the area.  So, if you’ve got suggestions I’ll take them!

Having a little fun with the entry way. Check the chandelier.

Should be interesting.  A month in the valley doing commercial work.  It could actually be longer than a month depending on a few other things, but only time will tell.  What this means is pretty simple.  We’ll be busy in March, and we’ll be warm too!!!!

All of the images here were shot in about 6 minutes of me roaming around.  Just wanted to get a feel for what I would do if I shot the interior for my clients.  So, don’t take these too serious.  I was using a full frame with my 17-40mm, and with all the curves I think I’d actually swap lenses here.  Additionally, using a few very light HDR techniques in order to balance the indoor and outdoor lighting.  I hate blown out windows, especially when they have such an amazing scene to show.

One other note…..I’ve gotten a good bit of feedback on this site about images presented over the years not displaying well on people’s monitors.  I use a calibrated monitor and printer when doing my final work and the match is really good.  I have now added a larger monitor that does not calibrate well (it was bought for gaming not editing) and I’ll tell you, the images look HORRIBLE on the non-calibrated monitor.  So, if you feel the images are dark, contrast off, etc, that’s your monitor.  Looks great on the calibrated setup and great in print.  If only there were a way to control for monitors….but that is nearly impossible.  On my IPad and IPhone with brightness at 100% it’s pretty close to what I see on my screen.