Greek Revival House New England . Lakeville / CT

Architect : Amber Construction . Collinsville / CT

Photos : Adrian WM Jones



About The Architecture

A stunning Greek Revival house built in Lakeville Connecticut. The craftsmen at Amber Construction really know how to take and incredible piece of land and make it even more incredible. This is New England perfection, classic, tasteful, charming all in a 'sesame seed bun' perched on rolling hills beside it's own lake, it is grand but not overstated, manicured but not fussy.

About This Shoot

I Actually rocked up here at 4pm on a late fall Friday afternoon while checking out the last in a series of tree houses I was scouting to shoot in the coming weeks. While looking for the tree house I stumbled upon this mansion, I called the architect to check if they had been involved in the house as well, he replied 'yeah that's just something we built 10 years ago', I asked if they had any photos of it, 'there were some years ago I think, I dunno..' .. I told him the light was amazing and asked if it would be OK to shoot some exteriors 'yeah sure, whatever..'.

This series of images was spread over two different days, those with the sun (minus the terrace photo) were shot on that Friday, the light was perfect fall afternoon sun, the type where whatever you shoot it comes out exactly as it should in camera, no editing required. I like to catch the moment as the sun is revealed by the clouds, in those few seconds there is a magical light, if you can time it just right you will find the most perfectly lit image sandwiched in those few frames, those either side will be blown out or flat. You have to be quick and anticipate several things unfolding at once and commit to what you are shooting, as in my experience these moments are fleeting, the sun position will change the lens flare, the perfect cloud will have passed, shadows will get longer and it all unravels pretty quick. Those Friday images were probably nailed in about a 10 minute window. After that the show was over. If you can get a run like that it takes nothing away from the type of photographer you are or the price tag, sometimes it just happens, I justify it to myself in knowing that not many photographers would not be acute enough to bring that much together in 10 minutes :), either way, when and if it happens, don't question it, stuff your memory card! grab all that you can!

The second visit was a heavily overcast day (as planned for the tree house) so I tacked on the remainder of the mansion shoot to that day. This time I worked with two- three second intervals every 15 mins or so where the sun leaked out of from the clouds, this took several hours to produce eight shots by comparison, but again, you can achieve dynamic colors and a particular depth on an overcast day if you plan to shoot it that way. I generally create a look and narrative in my mind of how a building is going to look and stay on that course, to me it's like a movies of the building and whatever else it might possibly be on different days I ignore, I work with weather I've got and bring it all into the scene. CUT! :)


Adrian WM Jones

Adrian Jones is a Connecticut based architectural photographer & documentary photographer. With over 20 years in the field he has worked in many areas of the film and photography industry and now uses his vast experience to focus on photographing architecture for architects and personal documentary projects.

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