Monteola Subdivision Project – Commercial Photography

Today’s commercial photography post if of the Monteola Subdivision, a premier Hill Country community.  Located north of San Antonio just off Hwy 281, Monteola is a new upscale community with gorgeous views.  Being new, there are very few homes and structures within the subdivision, so my focus was on photographing the layout and core of the community.

The sculptures seen in several of the photos were crafted by George Schroeder, a local San Antonio artist.  The sculptures mark the intersections within Monteola, and give the community an elegant Hill Country touch.

Hutto substaion and transmission lines – commercial photography

After covering the Salado portion of the transmission project I focused on the Hutto substation.  This of course had to be done on a separate day since the Salado side of the project was photographed close to sunset, leaving no opportunity to photograph both ends in one evening.  Photographing the Hutto end proved to be less challenging due to the wide open fields surrounding the substation.  Again shooting with the sun setting, the composition and direction of the photos worked nicely with the location and surroundings.

Having photographed the Hutto end a bit later in the year the weather was biting cold with strong winds, so while composing the shots was straightforward, enduring the cold was another story for this native Texas boy.  Have I mentioned that I would pick a 98 degree day over any day where it falls below 60! Even so, the images came out wonderful even without the advantage of dramatic clouds.  Having the room to compose the scene without restriction I was able to use the angles of the lines and towers to enhance the photos.

Hutto substaion with transmission lines running out

I loved this photograph with the Hutto water tower in the composition.

I liked the symetry and leading lines the towers produced.

This was a stitched Pano, made up of 3-4 photos

A bit lower angle showing the lines angling off in different directions from the substation

I very much liked the way the lines enhanced the composition of this photo.

Salado to Hutto Transmission Lines – Commercial Photography

The Salado to Hutto transmission project has been the longest stretch of lines I have photographed to this point.  Stretching from the north side of Salado to just north of Round Rock the lines cross farm and ranch land and occasionally run along FM roads.  My objective for this project was to photograph the substation and then trace the lines across the countryside looking for interesting locations that would add to the composition of the photo.  Covering more than 30 miles and country roads that traverse the ranch land in awkward angles, finding those locations would prove to be challenging, especially when light is at a premium.

With a cloudy sky I knew the resulting images had the potential to be fantastic, especially if I got the right composition at sunset.  I knew I would not be able to cover the entire stretch of lines and get the dramatic photos I was looking for so I settled on pinpointing several intersections where the lines crossed the FM roads.  With a good bit of patience and some rally car driving skills I was able to come away with some interesting photography.

Since the project was split into two shoots I will post photos of the Hutto end next time.

A set of lines running out of the Salado substation.

Panorama of the Salado substation

Beautiful horses that expected to get fed as I photographed the lines.

Panarama of the lines near Schwertner, TX

Sunset photo of the lines near Schwertner, TX

The Harbour in Corpus Christi – Commercial Photography

My commercial projects brought me to Corpus Christi and the opportunity to photograph The Harbour Condominiums there.  This was and interesting and challenging  project.  With the property basically facing North/South, I knew composing the sunset into the final photos would be tricky.  What I found was a gorgeous waterfront property that required a large number of bracketed shots to get all the detail.

Since this was a destination photography job, I knew I needed to cover as many options as possible to give myself the greatest choice when later editing the images.  I decided to bracket most shots at 9 frames, a bit overkill, but it ensured I would have all the latitude needed later on.  Bracketing shots basically involves shooting a number of frames from the same position at varying exposures.  With the camera locked down on a tripod this process gives me images that go from almost completely dark (underexposed) to completely bright (overexposed) in one 9 frame burst.

I also determined that in order to capture the scale of the condominiums I would need to shoot the location in sections and stitch the images together in a Panoramic.  This would all take place in post processing so I needed to get everything correct.

With everything captured and back in the editing software I had a large job in front of me.  Some of the stitched panoramics were going to consist of 7 frames.  Due to the large dynamic range in light I was working with, I first had to combine the 9 frame set into an HDR image.  This ensured that all the detail would be visible in the final photo from the shadows to the highlights.  In essence I was blending to techniques to render one final photo.

I had 7 sets of 9 frames, for a total of 63 images that were going to be combined in one of two ways to yield the final photo.  First each set of 9 was merged into an HDR image, then those 7 were stitched together to get the final Panoramic.  This same process was used in one form or another on all the images from the location, but many of the other photos did not have as many images involved in producing the final image.

In all it was a challenging project with a very rewarding outcome in terms of the final images.

The Harbour Condominiums in Corpus Christi

The Harbour Condos looking over the pool and courtyard area

The Harbour Condos street view

Courtyard view of the pool and condos

View of the condos from the boat slips. HDR and stitched pano from 7 sets of 9 images each.

Lake Placid Water Treatment Plant – commercial photography

One of my more interesting commercial projects was photographing the Lake Placid water treatment plant.  This might bring up some unpleasant images in your mind, but as you will see below, it was an interesting project.  Keep in mind, I worked in a sausage factory at one time, but that is a story for another time.

The treatment plant located in Seguin was renovated with new equipment added.  My goal was to capture that in the most compelling and interesting manner possible.  I would have to say this was probably the most challenging commercial photography project I have done.  With pipes going everywhere, and no real central subject I set about trying to compose images that would capture the engineering aspects of the location.

Overall the opportunity to see the treatment plant and photograph it was interesting.  Certainly it was a bit unnerving at times as I was set up for many of the shots on the steel catwalks over the water tanks.  Since I am often looking for the angles that will make the image appealing I had to ensure nothing fell into the tanks.  In the end it proved to be an interesting project and I captured some decent images.

Gruene United Methodist Church – Commercial Photography

A large portion of my commercial photography work for M&S Engineering has been transmission lines, but their services extend across a wide variety of projects.  One of their local projects included Gruene United Methodist Church.  This is a beautiful church located on the North side of New Braunfels in Gruene visible from FM 306.

Photographing architecture is a challenge, but the real key is finding the right angle and composition and playing that against the sunset when the time is right.  As mentioned in previous posts the approach is much more methodical and controlled in comparison to a portrait session.  Occasional I will add some auxiliary light into the photo as was the case in the last image here, where I added some additional pop to the sign.

New Braunfels Square Lights

One of my latest commercial photography projects was to capture the New Braunfels Square Lights during the Christmas season. Commercial projects require a very different approach than do portrait sessions or weddings.  One of the main differences is the use of a tripod and longer shutter speeds.  For people photography and portrait sessions I like to shoot unencumbered and with a large degree of flexibility so that I can easily and quickly change camera angles and still capture spontaneous moments.  Commercial jobs allow me to be more methodical in my approach and while I still have to work quickly to capture the best images during sunset, I have the luxury of time.

For New Braunfels Square, the focus was on the lights so while I was able to capture a few images just after sunset, the majority of the work was later into the evening.  No time restraints to worry about.

I have come to enjoy panoramic photos when working with commercial and architecture scenes and the Square lent itself well to the format.  In the last photo below I stitched together 3 images resulting in a gorgeous capture of the location.