It’s been so beautiful here in the Hudson Valley this autumn. We love seeing our projects in the fall, surrounded by trees of oranges, reds, and yellows. It’s so special when we get to capture these moments on camera. This fall we visited Cat Hill to photograph and take video footage of the home and its site. We’re currently working towards getting more video footage of our completed homes. There’s a distinct feeling in each of our homes that you can only experience by being there, and we always want to be able to share a glimpse of that experience through photos and now video. In this blog we’ll talk about our time at Cat Hill – but before we get into that, we will also share what it’s like to work with a professional photographer.
Photography
Most of our finished photography is taken by the amazingly talented Brad Feinknopf. We love working with Brad and the tight collaboration we have to produce stunning photographs. Oftentimes we’ll tell Brad certain areas of the house we need photographed and some key points in the design, but we always ask for his eye and what moments he thinks need to be captured.
Some of the best times to capture a home are during sunrise, dusk, and sunset, making photography days very long and full days. One of the greatest challenges is maneuvering to find the best spots to get exterior shots. Since we avoid clearing more trees than are needed at each site, it’s hard to find the perfect frame without a lot of the home getting blocked by trees. We are often up on steep slopes and finding our (and the tripod’s) balance for the perfect shot.
Another challenge is photographing rooms like bathrooms and bedrooms. Avoiding any distortion with a very wide lens, it’s often hard to find an angle that best captures the entirety of a room. In bedrooms and bathrooms, most often there are key parts of the design opposite each other which make it almost impossible to fully capture in a still image. On another note – in case you haven’t noticed, one thing you can always count on in our interior photographs is a Studio MM specific Easter Egg – Fred the turtle.
We always take a lot of photos which we then select from later. While we’re selecting images we’re thinking about which images capture a wow moment of the overall house, tell the story of the home, and ones that best describe certain aspects or details of the home. The most important consideration during the photoshoot is that we take images that tell the story of the design and the home.
Videos
When Brad photographed our two most recently completed projects, Kaat Cliffs and South Mountain House, he also took some drone footage. Brad captured these beautiful panoramic views of each home and their locations in the Hudson Valley. In addition to the videos getting a birds eye view of the land, we also have videos that move from one side of the house to the other. These pans capture the floor to ceiling glass windows at the back of each of these homes.
During our recent visit to Cat Hill, we were excited able to shoot footage both inside and outside the home. We captured the firewood crackling in the fireplace, the sun dancing on the walls, the leaves falling, the vast array of birds, and all of the other magical moments. We are so grateful to our client at Cat Hill for letting us spend a day there and for gifting us amazing stories of fox, deer, and bear visits.
Video is something we are gravitating more towards, whether short form clips that feature specific design ideas or moments or longer videos that tell the home’s full story. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and Vimeo (and soon, YouTube!) to catch more footage and photography from our most recent visit to Cat Hill.