September 2010 Photograph of the Month Tafoni

Tafoni - Wide Screen

Tafoni - Narrow Screen

This months photograph is titled “Tafoni”

I shot this image in El Corte de Madera Creek Open Space Preserve. Tafoni are small cave-like features caused by weathering and erosion found in granular rock such as sandstone or granite. They are found in intertidal areas, such as our coastline, as well as in deserts.

My wife Erica and I enjoy exploring the open spaces of the Peninsula, and when we found this remarkable feature of the landscape I knew I could get some really cool shots. And since my daughter suggested that I stretch my limits, I felt this was a good opportunity to set aside my innate preference for realism and explore the abstract.

Please let me know what you think by calling me, sending a e-mail or posting a comment here on my blog.

All images in my “Photograph of the Month” series are sized and formatted as a screen saver or computer desktop wallpaper. Please, share it with your family and friends, with my compliments.

Please call me if you have any need for photographs and I will do all I can to help you.

Thanks,
Dean

Permanent Link

Pre Roll-Out Announcement of Project Daedalus

What lies beyond?

Today I am announcing Project Daedalus, named after the master artificer of Greek legend who is attributed with many great works and inventions (such as lifelike imagery and sculpture, building the Labyrinth at Knossos, and who is most famous for crafting wings for himself and his son Icarus to escape their captivity in said labyrinth).

For two months I have been working on Project Daedalus to help my clients increase their ROI from social networking, improve their search engine rankings and help get their phone ringing, while making it easy to do.

The official roll-out is coming soon; keep your eyes and ears open.

My Photograph In the SF Chronicle

Northbrook Design

Northbrook Designs

Northbrook Designs

A shot I did of Katherine North’s Entry Hall while working with Nesting Newbies was published in the SF Chronicle.

I’m really happy to see it and the publicity is cool. All three of them are High Dynamic Range Images as well.

August 2010 Photograph of the Month Twilight on the Sea of Souls

Twilight at the Sea of Souls

Twilight at the Sea of Souls

This months photograph is titled “Twilight on the Sea of Souls”

This image is another in a series I did of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse near Pescadero, CA back in 2006. I really love this particular lighthouse because of it’s archetypal architecture. It is the only classically styled lighthouse on the west coast because this is the only point that does not have cliffs of sufficient height on which to build the structure above the fog.

This is a pseudo high dynamic range image. Normally to shoot HDRI you need several different exposures of the same scene, however if you only have a single exposure you can still get unique and very dramatic results.

I hope you like it.

You can download this month’s screen saver by clicking the images above. A new window will open with a larger version that you can save to your hard drive.

All images in my “Photograph of the Month” series are sized and formatted as a screen saver or computer desktop wallpaper. Please, share it with your family and friends, with my compliments.

Dean

High Dynamic Range Photography of Interior Design

I was speaking with Meera Chawla after the ASID CA Peninsula board meeting yesterday and she told me that she was impressed with the crisp liveliness of my photographs when viewing my portfolio. I told her this was the result of my use of high dynamic range imaging.

High Dynamic Range Image of Residential Kitchen

The high dynamic range imaging allows me to create images of spaces as humans perceive them, with rich colors and a wealth of detail in both highlight and shadows that capture the delicate interplay of color and texture. This technique allows me to go beyond showing the furnishings and accouterments to communicating the mood and emotion of a space with unparalleled fidelity to the designer’s vision.

As I say in my seminar on photography for interior designers high dynamic range imaging will soon become the standard for interior design photography. I recognized it’s utility and value the first time I had the opportunity to work with it, this is why I have worked to master the technique. and now my clients can benefit by having photographs of their designs that contain a life and sparkle that was never before possible.

You can view more high dynamic range images of interior design in my portfolio galleries.

ASID CA Peninsula Continuity Board Meeting

ASID CA Peninsula Continuity Board Meeting

(Board members above, from left to right, first row: Carol Spence Carr, Marie Chan, Jane Higo. Second row: Debbie Snider, Jeanette Loretz, Divya Vijayanandakumar. Not shown but in attendance: Anna Sarkissian and Dean Birinyi)

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet with the current board of the ASID CA Peninsula chapter at the continuity meeting at AS Design in Los Gatos. This was the beginning of the hand off from the leadership of Marie Chan to that of Carol Spence Carr.

I’m looking forward to working with the chapter and hope I am ready for the challenges I will be assigned as my duties. The upcoming board, on which I sit as the Industry Partner Director is meeting on Monday.

High Dynamic Range Image of the Tech Museum in San Jose, CA

I also had the opportunity to speak with Meera Chawla regarding the 2010 ASID CA Peninsula Design Awards Gala. I will be photographing the event and look forward to having the opportunity to help tell the story of the event.

Styling for Interior Design Photography

Private Residence, San Mateo

I am surprised when my clients respond with astonishment when I help with the styling for my photographs. I move furniture and plants, help hang artwork and clear off desks, tables and counters. I offer suggestions about where to place the flowers, and how they should be arranged to best compliment the photographs composition and suggest changes to the arrangement of furnishings and which art to use where. This is the collaborative aspect of interior design photography and I love doing it.

But what really causes the strongest response is when I help put the homeowners things back where they were, help with re-packing the boxes of plates, vases and flowers, and carry things out to the car at the end of the day.

Because I am using high dynamic range imaging and no longer have twelve lights to position, adjust and control I have more time to work with my clients to style the spaces and make the photographs we create the best they can be, but I have always done these things. For an interior design photographer this is what collaboration is. If your photographer isn’t doing it, you should be working with me.

New Flat Rate Pricing For Interior Design Photographs

I’m proud to announce new flat rate pricing for single interior photographs with no time limits, no hidden costs and no restrictions. This gives interior designers an affordable and predictable cost to have great quality professional photographs of even their smallest projects.

Private Residence, Los Altos Hills

And of course you will still receive the unparalleled customer service for which I have become known.

In the past it was not possible to offer a flat rate price for photographing interiors because of the complexity of the supplemental lighting required; often simply unpacking and re-packing the lights & camera would take longer than shooting the photograph.

Now that I am using High Dynamic Range Imaging we work exclusively with available light to reproduce the atmospheric effects of the space with an authenticity that simply isn’t possible when using supplemental lighting. And this means we no longer have the artificial complexity of odd shadows or stray reflections being cast by the photographers supplemental lighting.

Please take a look at my new pricing. I’ve done all I can to structure my services to make it easy, affordable and predictable because helping you is why I am here.

http://www.djbphoto.com/DJBPhoto_Pricing.html

April 2010 Photograph of the Month “Restraint 2″

High Dynamic Range Image of the Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay in Redding, CA

Narrow Screen Version

This months photograph of the month is titled “Restraint 2” I hope you like it.

I shot this image of the Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay in 2007 in preparation for a gallery showing. I first saw this wonderful creation in 2004 on a trip to Redding, CA to photograph the Shasta County Municipal Building. It made  a big impression upon me and I have revisited the site several times since then and each time I find a new view of the grandeur and majesty of this remarkable example of creativity and design; I never would have imagined to find such a work in Redding, but there it is.

Both March and April have been extremely hectic months. Beginning with shooting several last minute projects for the ASID Design competition, being voted onto the board of ASID CA Peninsula, previous commitments to the chapters student members and commitments to my favorite not-for-profit organization, along with some on-going and resource intensive technical challenges with my computer system I have barely managed to get Aprils photograph of the month out on the first day of May. But, as with all the things there is never a good time to do anything, so you do it when you have the chance.
All images in my “Photograph of the Month” series are sized and formatted as a screen saver or computer desktop wallpaper. Please, share it with your family and friends, with my compliments.

You can download copies of all the Photographs of the Month by following this link to my website gallery.

Photograph of the Month March 2010 “Ghost Fence”

Wide Screen Version: High Dynamic Range Image of an old fence in heavy fog

High Dynamic Range Photogrpah of an old fence in heavy fog

This month’s photograph is titled “Ghost Fence” I hope you like it.

I found this fence in Sunnyvale Baylands Park last year while biking with my wife. I waited for the heavy fog to shoot it because the image I envisioned called for a mysterious atmosphere to convey the mood of the fence. I think it worked out quite well.

This photograph is a High Dynamic Range Image as are most photographs I have created over the past few years.

I recently discovered that my gallery software has been restricting the size of the images I posted there. It’s a very complicated piece of software and this feature got past me when I was setting it up.

I have corrected the problem and now the screen saver images will be the full 1920×1200 pixels in wide screen format and 1280×1024 pixels in square format that I intended them to be in the first place. I will be going through my archive and resizing past Photograph of the Month images to meet these specifications.

You can download the full size versions by clicking on the images you see above.

All images in my “Photograph of the Month” series are sized and formatted as a screen saver or computer desktop wallpaper. Please, share it with your family and friends, with my compliments.