Not living in the past. Here's something new......

Office Lobby in the Dallas area.  April 2010.

We tend to get pigeon-holed in this industry.  Do a nice campaign with people in it and you're sunk.  You'll only get calls for projects with people.  We tend to do it to ourselves though.  We find a part of photography that's fun for us and we go back to the well again and again. But the reality is that if you are the beneficiary (victim?) of both a well rounded, liberal arts education and a good technical grounding in photography, you should be able to bring both the taste and skills (such as they are) to just about any assignment.

One of my first assignments, years ago, was for a lifestyle magazine dedicated to American antiquities.  I spent months and months on the road photographing the interiors and exteriors of historic homes.  I shot plantation houses, ranch houses and meticulous reproductions of famous historic architectural styles.  I got to know my view camera and my interior lighting from every angle and at one point could use it almost as fast as a point and shoot.

So, recently I did a comprehensive job for a law firm, shooting partners and associates and their far flung offices.  The art director I worked was one of the rare ones who really gets that styles can cross over genres and specialities.  With this in mind she also asked me to shoot the offices.

I was entranced by this lobby.  Those are huge metal doors in the background.  They move with computer controlled electric motors.  They are "James Bond" cool.

Here's a close-up of the doors.....

I used a Canon 5D mk 2 and an old 20mm f2.8 lens.  I did a few, slight perspective changes in PhotoShop but nothing too dramatic.  I remembered that I like shooting architectural stuff.  I'd largely abandoned it in deference to a close friend.  I didn't want to compete.  But now we've both decided to broaden our markets so I'm looking for more interesting assignments like this.

It's not too hard when the client and their architectural designers have done their jobs well.  The challenging stuff is trying to make a silk purse out of tilt wall construction and cheap furniture.  But that's story for another time.....