In August, we photographed this incredible project for an international architectural publication on the campus of Concordia Language Villages in Bemidji, Minnesota. The house is extremely energy efficient and utilizes the passive house model developed in Germany. Read the whole story here.
We just returned from several assignments in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Orlando, Daytona Beach, and Miami Beach Florida.
Check out this cool building we photographed in Miami Beach. I am on a lift truck about 50 feet above ground level.
Here’s a shot looking toward the ocean from my vantage point in the lift truck.
Up near Ocala, Florida I met some real cowboys who were working with about 200 head of cattle. The three men on horseback represent 3 generations of their family with the eldest being 75 years old. I was amazed at his horsemanship and ability to jump off of his mount and to wrestle down the 400 pound calves.”
I was very happy to see one of my photos on the cover of the latest issue of Custom Wood Homes when I got back from San Francisco.
It was 70 degrees when I arrived in Denver on Wednesday, April 15.
I spent a couple of days photographing home electronics and an amazing horse ranch called Saddle Up that works with handicapped children and adults. Then things started to go downhill fast. A major snowstorm hit the area.
Some areas got 56″ of snow and I 70 was closed for 17 hours. I ended up spending 4 nights at the clients home. We are still speaking however, and he plans to use us for more work in the future.
Here’s a shot of my motorhome stranded in the road at the beginning of the storm.
Next week we are off to San Francisco!
Next week we’re headed off to Denver for several assignments in and around Denver and Vail. If we have time, we may head over to Salt Lake City and to Arches National Park for some hiking.
We photographed this rock & roll themed home theater while we were in Nashville, TN. It is another amazing design from Casa Home Cinema utilizing a tiny space above a garage.
The theater contains a beautiful totally restored 1955 Wurlitzer jukebox that worked great playing 45’s and sounded amazing. Sometimes, I have the best job in the world!
We photographed this celebrity couple and several rooms in their home in Chicago for a home electronics company. He is Bill Rancic, the winner of the first season of “The Apprentice “on NBC. She is Guiliana Depandi of E! Entertainment on the style channel. The photo shoot was great-they had a film crew there from the show and I even got on camera while photographing the couple. Watch for me this summer on “The Style Channel!”
To serve as a base of operations and mobile office for our out of town assignments, last month we purchased this new 2009 Coachmen Freelander motorhome.
This enables us to download photos, wait for the perfect light, sleep. cook meals etc. while on the job site for our architectural photography work. Many of the structures we photograph are quite a distance from the nearest hotel so the motorhome will make our workflow much more efficient.
It also gives a 14 foot high shooting platform on its rear deck.
Check out this award-winning penthouse we photographed in Dallas for Electronic House magazine.
Coming up -we are off to Charlotte, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Denver.
Northern Indiana Lakes magazine recently featured a story about people who built their own wooden boats. Here’s an excerpt:
“Joe Hilliard, a commercial photographer in Elkhart, also caught the serial kayak bug. An accomplished paddler, Hilliard already owned a number of kayaks -fiberglass, folding, and conventional plastic-but had often considered building a wooden boat. He certainly knew his way around wood, having built houses, decks, and even banjos before.”
Above: Testing my boat before heading to the Boundary Waters.
“Then in 2005, Hilliard read about a wooden kit kayak, the Pygmy Coho, in Sea Kayaker magazine; several reviewers cited its exceptional handling. Further, the Coho weighed in at about half that of Hilliard’s other kayaks, a big advantage when transporting boats.
That was all it took. Hilliard liked the idea of going the kit route, because evrything was provided and all the wooden pieces were precut for precision. So he ordered the kit and started carefully working his way through the instruction, thinking that he might eventually build a boat for each member of his family -all four of them.
No sooner was it done than Hilliard’s new kayak was put to the test. “I finished it around noon on a Friday,” he says, “paddled it on the river for about ten minutes to make sure it didn’t leak, and then we left for a week-long camping trip to the Boundary Waters wilderness area.” The Coho lived up to its reviews, he says, even when loaded with more than one hundred pounds of camping gear.”
Above: Paddling my feathercraft folding kayak in Canada in the North Channel of Lake Huron.
“Like many builders of wooden boats, Hilliard initially worried about scratching his new project’s sleek hull on rocky shorelines. “I had to have a talk with myself,” he explains. “I asked, ‘Did you build a piece of furniture or did you build a boat?’” Even though he was prepared for the worst, Hilliard says that no scratches have yet penetrated the tough epoxy coating.
In early 2008, Hilliard started a new Pygmy Osprey kayak, which will feature a dark cherry stain on its deck. Because he can only squeeze in work on the boat between photography assignments, he doesn’t expect to complete the new kayak until this winter.”
Above: We used my wooden kayak for a photo shoot that ended up as this billboard for Elkhart General Hospital.