Every once in a while, a photographer will get an assignment that will really excite him (or her).
Architect Melissa (Missy) Brown of Denver, CO presenting me with such a project earlier this winter. Todd, her brother, had asked her to design a tree house for him to use as a retreat. Obviously as you can see from the picture, she agreed.
In the foothills, just west of Denver, Missy used a hillside next to Todd's driveway to build the tree house. By building on what she learned at a TreeHouse Workshop in Washington state, Missy added her own personal design and used as much reclaimed material as possible.
When I first scouted this with her, I wasn't sure just how we were going to shoot it. It was January, it was cold, and it had just snowed. It wasn't finished yet either, which didn't help
much. However, there was enough done for me to realize that if I could overcome the technical issues of lighting, we could have a ton of fun shooting it. I did, and we did.We were hoping to get Missy enough images for a nice article in a magazine. We ended up with plenty, 11 interiors and 23 exteriors. All of this from a 10'x14'x14' tree house. Not bad. Not only did we get her enough for an article, we also got her connected with a publisher for the article.
Additionally, we will be using one of the images from the shoot for the 2010 Denver Parade of Homes magazine cover. I brought the images into a meeting to show the publisher for the story, and the committee ended up liking one of the shots for the cover. They needed a neutral home for the cover and thought "Why not?". Needless to say, Missy is quite excited about it. Me too to be honest. I've had many projects published, but there's just something about this one that makes it special.
As you can see from the images, it really was a ton of fun to shoot. The main problem was getting the ambient light usable without blowing out the windows. I'm not a fan of that look, it's too "Better Homes and Garden" to me. We accomplished this by placing a large Chimera soft box on a tall stand, just outside the window on the right side of the tree house. We then put a silk over the inside of the window to further soften the light. After establishing that, it was a matter of placing grids and smaller soft boxes as needed. Obviously, for some of the shots, we had to remove the silk. But for the most part, that worked very well for us. We shot both with the Nikons and the Mamiya with a Phase One digital back. Image sizes range from 28MB to 65MB. Plenty big enough for the end uses.
Overall, we spent a bit over one full day there. I also went back in the morning after the main shoot to get some nice A.M. light on the exterior. With post production
included, we have about 24 total hours invested in the shoot. We decided to give Missy a great rate because of the uniqueness of the project. I haven't done that in about 10 years. That's how special this one was.As you can tell from the image on the left, it even has a great little front porch to enjoy the morning coffee and paper. The only thing missing to make this totally habitable would be running water. I guess that could be included in the addition?
Although Todd and his wife were planning on using it for their own little retreat, Todd does admit that in all likelihood, his kids will end up getting more use out of it than they probably will. I wish I had something like this growing up. Heck, I wish I had something like this now that I am grown up.
To see more of our work, check out Moss Photography.
~V~
