You hear about these two out of Portland? Apparently they won't shoot without studying the sun first.
The sun?
Yes, that big ball in the sky. Where it's going to be and when, which room it's hitting, what hour it peaks into the east-facing kitchen. There's an app involved. Sunseeker, I think. All before a single Pelican case gets unpacked.
And he lights the interiors himself. Brings his own strobes. But it's not what you're thinking. Not that blown-out, flash-everywhere, trigger-happy wedding photographer situation. The strobes are there to help the natural light, not fight it. Supplemental and symbiotic. Because without them, a blue sky outside bleeds right through the glass and rewrites the color of your walls. Benjamin Moore's Swiss Coffee becomes something cooler, something other, something nobody specified and nobody asked for.
Can't you just fix that later?
That's the thing. He is later. He does all the retouching himself, which is why every exposure is gathered on the day for a specific reason. Not bracketed as insurance, gathered with intent. So, in Photoshop, every path is hand drawn. We're talking frequency separation when needed. Manual compositing. Surgical, layer by layer. The kind of retouching that takes longer and looks like it didn't happen. No overseas handoff. No automated pipeline. No software making decisions on his behalf.
So, no HDR software I take it?
HDR software is "tonally criminal"... strong words, but that's what I heard. Apparently what that method does to color, for example, a little green from the trees outside becomes a lot of green, the image drifts further from the room as it actually existed. Anything needing correction gets compounded and multiplied. Why shoot yourself in the foot like that? Pretty much everything gets managed in camera that can get managed in camera rather than patched later. Because he knows exactly what patching it later costs — he's the one doing it.
Okay, I think I'm getting it. What kind of camera do they use?
Here's the thing — they don't own a digital camera.
For real?
They own plenty of lighting and grip. A Pentax 6x7 film camera, too. Which they actually use. But digital? They choose the right tool for the job. Canon when speed and playback matter. Fujifilm GFX when the highest fidelity of detail is what the project demands. No loyalty to a system. Just loyalty to the work.
What about her?
She's the compass. Nothing gets delivered without her say-so. Nothing goes up on their instagram, nothing leaves the post-production stage, nothing gets signed off on without passing through her first. She sees things. The kind of things that don't show up until after you've been staring at something too long. You want to know if an image is ready? Ask her.
And apparently — this is the part that stuck with me — he photographs interiors the way a painter approaches a still life. "Never had the patience to paint one", the way the story goes. But to photograph one: Now that's doable. Still contemplative. Still unhurried. But a more reasonable turnaround than oil-on-canvas.
The final image looks like the room. The room as it actually was, on its best day, in its best light.
Where are they based again?
Portland. But word is they're still at large.