Marietta - The Gem City Of Georgia

For the last 3 years I have been working on a book project of photographing the historic homes of Marietta Georgia. The book written by author Doug Frey, edited by Grace Barr, and designed by art director Michael Leidel is now ready to go to press. This 400+ page coffee table book showcases homes that date as far back as the civil war. It was both a real honor and challenge to take on this ongoing project. Most of the photography had to be done on weekends to accommodate all of us as well as the homeowners. The major challenge from the photographic point of view was to get in and out of theses homes fast without disturbing the homeowners as much as possible. This basically meant that I could not just show up with a truckload of lighting equipment and spend the day photographing each room. Instead I needed to be in and out in 60 to 90 minutes and cover several different scenes for each home with out any elaborate extra lighting. The answer… Merge to HDR and use the available window light to capture the natural look of each home. What I learned along the way was very valuable for any architecture projects I may get to photograph in the future. The only extra lighting I used was a singe ProFoto 600WS battery strobe used as bounced fill light to help reduce the extreme contrast between the windows and room interior. I have more detailed information on the lighting challenges in an upcoming article I have written for Photoshop User Magazine that will be available very soon. I have added a new portfolio section to my web site that showcases many of the images from the book that can be viewed at www.DiVitalePhotography.com in the Architecture Portfolio section. Since this is my first attempt at this area of photography, I found that it was an incredible learning experience along the way. The images are all shot on the Canon 1Ds Mark III camera and an assortment of different Canon lenses. Using the new 17mm and 24mm tilt-shift Canon lenses was a real advantage on the images in getting the proper perspective in the camera from the start. I would love to here some feedback on the new images if you have a moment to check it out. Have a safe and Happy Holidays.