Every year I and some of my best friends do a lightning 4-day trip up to Colorado to climb one of the 54 peaks that are 14,000′ or taller. It’s doubtful we’ll ever climb all of them since we’re getting “old” now. This year’s climb was Mount Belford (14,197′). Three of us had climbed Belford in a past year, but wanted to introduce it to new members of our group. On the afternoon after we had lugged our gear up to high camp, I took photos with my smartphone… enough photos to create a “photosphere.” Back in Dallas, I stitched those photos together and produced the following video: When people see this sort of video, they often assume I was …

High in the Colorado Rockies Read more »

When my son Joshua and I were exploring downtown Dallas last week, we discovered this 30-foot-tall eyeball sculpture. We immediately realized that it presented endless opportunities for animation, making for great Photoshop and Premiere practice. Enjoy my weird little exercise. This video is best-experienced with its soundtrack.* Crank it up!   Know somebody whose organization or business could use some fresh marketing? Give me a call! (214) 843-1484   *NOTE: the soundtrack was generated for me in Sonicfire Pro by my long-time colleague and collaborator Marco Ciavolino, owner of Enktesis LLC.

I published an earlier version of this Photosphere, but then I figured out several ways to make it better. It’s kind of nice with the music, so turn up the speakers! This kind of presentation is ideal for schools, large churches, hotels, and convention centers… or any venue where potential visitors would like to “look around” before they visit. Have a use for one of these cool little movies? Give me a call! (214) 843-1484 View some other examples of my Photosphere-based movies HERE.

When friends ask me to photograph a house they are selling, I usually give them a copy of the photographs that I gave their Realtor. So many memories are bound up in the home where they were formed. We picture our mothers and fathers, brothers, and sisters, sons and daughters in the spaces we shared with them.   So This One is For My Own Family When we moved to the States from Mexico in 1970, Mom and Dad were as poor as any other missionary couple. They were surely hard-pressed to come up with the down payment on the dumpy little house that a Realtor showed them in Van, Texas. It was a well-built house, but the property had …

Goodbye, Old Friend Read more »

Take a Look Around and Around and Around. Wait for it…. Photo Spheres have been around (pardon the pun) for several years. But I had ignored them until recently, when a friend reintroduced me to their charm. During his visit from Baltimore, Marco and I went out and shot full spherical shots of several locations, including these three at Lovers Lane United Methodist Church (one of my clients). See how we used the garden shot ON THEIR WEBSITE (scroll down to bottom of that page).   NOTES: Click on the icon in the bottom right to go FULL SCREEN. You’ll love it! These are big images, so they may take a few seconds to load.   But first, a video …

Take a Look Around and Around and Around Read more »

Last week, I shot three new houses for a friend down in Austin. The houses were ALMOST ready for listing, but there was finishing work remaining on each of them. The landscaping was not done yet. Driveways and walks were muddy; floors were dusty. There was a temporary utility pole in one yard, and some rubble in the yards. But because of the pressure to get these houses on the market, my friend asked me to shoot them as-is and Photoshop where necessary. See How I Added Grass, Cleaned the Driveways, and Mopped the Floors Without Breaking a Sweat! NOTE: Click on the two top slideshows to see them larger. Getting Rid of Dirt, Adding Grass Cleaning the Floors More …

No-Sweat Landscaping and House Cleaning Read more »

Video Version of Virtual Tours This format is excellent for posting on YouTube and embedding in your Facebook page. There are branded and unbranded versions. I recommend the branded version as it places your contact information at the beginning and end of the video. In your account settings, you have the opportunity to setup automated YouTube publishing, so new tour videos get published directly to your YouTube channel.

Dogs Wreck Home Staging On a recent Real Estate shoot, I and the Realtor tried to hide some soiled cushions in an otherwise lovely living room. We gave up. The owner’s dogs had simply made themselves too comfortable! The photo of that room was too important to discard, so I retouched the couch so that the soiled cloth would not distract. You can see the results below:  

She only THOUGHT the floor wasn’t ready! NOTE: Real Estate Photography does not include structural retouching. This was for demonstration only. On a recent practice/demo photo shoot, my host apologized that one of her rooms was not really ready for photography. It turns out that the carpet had been pulled up in the master bedroom, and the floor was being prepared for wood floors like the rest of the house. My original thought was to simulate carpet in that room, but I was able to clone enough wood floor from the rest of the house to produce a convincing virtual remodel. Click on the image to view it larger. See how many other edits you can spot! (VIEW FULL TOUR). …

She only THOUGHT the floor wasn’t ready! Read more »