Larry Lefever Photography

Charter Homes Neighborhood

The nature of architectural photography is bi-polar. With interiors, we have a lot of control over lighting, but it often takes a ton of work to get it right. Shooting exteriors, we’re usually at the mercy of the sun and I have yet to be able to impose my wishes on the big old disk. It often comes down to waiting for the sun to get to where I want it and hoping that clouds don’t spoil the plan. Waiting and hoping. Here, I wanted the sun in the shot, but also have it skim across the front of the foreground house. Well, the composition just wouldn’t allow that to happen. By the time the sun came around far enough to light the front of the house, it would be out of frame to the right. The solution was to shoot for the sky with the sun and some nice clouds and then wait. Wait for the sun to move further to the right and hope. Hope that the clouds didn’t block it and spoil everything. I shot the sky and then waited … for more than 30 minutes , and hoped … for more than 30 minutes, that the sun would pop out beneath the clouds before it dipped below the horizon … which it did. It was even kind enough to light the lawn and throw a nice reflection on the street. Sometimes you just have to … “Wait for it”.