I was asked to photograph an enormous retirement village, made up of numerous blocks of flats with varying designs. The extensive grounds feature several lochs and fountains as well as large wooded and grass areas and walled garden. I completed the drone, ground level exterior and interior photographs over a few days and ultimately delivered 274 retouched images to my client.
With the retirement village it was important for the privacy of residents not to include them in any photographs. There were some vacant units that I was able to shoot as examples of the flats.
With regard to communal areas I discussed with the staff when each area would be quiet and worked around the schedule of the residents.
So often with commercial properties a large part of the job on the day is to work with the staff to plan and manage timings for areas I shoot to ensure that I can access all areas that I need to cover without causing any disruption to the business. When shooting retail or entertainment businesses, where I generally want images to look as busy as possible, I also have to consider what time of day they will have the greatest amount of footfall.
It is often the case that a property owner has arranged my visit with a property manager or head office. It is important for me to recognise that to the staff in the businesses, my visit is little more than another problem for them to deal with that day and it is not uncommon to find that messages have not been passed on to all employees. Although my access will have been agreed in advance, the staff on site can make life easy or difficult for me and can often determine how much time I get in each area to complete my work. It is often true though that the success of a visit will be determined by how well I manage the interactions with the staff.
I am always conscious of this and try to be friendly and courteous and to show them that I am keen to minimise any disruption to their day. Luckily for me, this particular job was made easier by the staff who couldn’t have been friendlier or more eager to help.
Similarly, I am always cognisant of not upsetting customers and members of the public by taking photographs of people who would prefer to be left undisturbed.
In the case of the retirement village, I was avoiding getting anyone in the photographs, but had plenty of lovely conversations with interested residents who were curious about my visit.
In terms of the pictures themselves, I was shooting almost exclusively HDR images. Read more about HDR images here – https://brianmathesonphotography.co.uk/combining-different-exposures/
I also shot a lot of drone photographs to show the scale of the site and the beautiful setting as well as to capture the buildings from some unique, interesting angles.
The time of year was not ideal for shooting some of the gardens, but it was still important to the client that I showed the size of the site and that the gardens and man-made lakes are well maintained.
