Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Public Building of the Year


 I am honored to have photographed the 2012 AIA MD Public building of the Year for Cho Benn Hollback Associates! I just found about the award. The project won out over a loaded field of nice projects. Congrats CBH!


© Patrick Ross Photography, 2012.   All rights reserved
http://www.aiamd.org/gallery/coppin-quad-and-cafe

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Largest Firm in World!

AEcom was just announced as the largest firm in the world by Architectural Record. I am currently working with them on the Mercy Medical Center Bunting Tower. It is fun to say that I am working for the largest firm in the world!!!


©Patrick Ross Photography, 2010
©Patrick Ross Photography, 2010

Monday, November 15, 2010

Mercy Tower

                                           © Patrick Ross Photography, 2010
I am very happy to have been granted the contract to photograph the new Mercy Mary Catherine Bunting Center for AECOM, Whiting-Turner, Mercy Medical Center and SDYM. We are producing a monograph of the project. I have been fortunate to be the primary photographer on multiple monographs this year. It should be an exciting shoot as many of the shots are going to require a boom lift and it should be interesting navigating that around the heart of downtown Baltimore!!!

Coppin St Athletic Complex

I just wrapped up shooting the 266,000 SF Coppin Athletic Complex for Sasaki Associates. It was lots of work! Attached are a small portion of the images produced. The entire complex was new build and is certainly the jewel of the campus. Thank you to Sasaki, HCM, Gilbane, Coppin State University and the Maryland Stadium Authority. We have another shoot scheduled in the arena when a basketball game is being played. Should be nice to see the arena really come to life. The graduation ceremony (pictured below) shows an alternate use of this beautiful arena.
©PatrickRoss Photography, 2010

©PatrickRoss Photography, 2010
©PatrickRoss Photography, 2010
©PatrickRoss Photography, 2010


©PatrickRoss Photography, 2010

©PatrickRoss Photography, 2010

©PatrickRoss Photography, 2010

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Winter in West Virginia, 2010

                                          © Patrick Ross Photography, 2010
           


The East Coast of the United States experienced an abnormally large volume of snow in the winter of 2010. I took the opportunity to set out with my new camera setup (described in the previous blog) and make some images. For the most part, there was so much snow that objects were indiscernible. (i.e. I think that is a tree under that enormous mound of snow!)


When photographing, I always try and personalize an image, add "spin"- your personal style and ability to lead a viewer throughout a scene. (You know an Ansel Adams photograph without seeing the signature!) This layered valley absolutely inundated with snow and ice caught my eye. I was initially photographing these trees because they were catching a stunning sunset light. The light got very nice again after sundown and the resulting soft light image with a pastel sky was the winner.


*This image will appear in the Sierra Club 2012 Engagement Calendar. The Sierra Club saw the image and liked it enough to honor me with an invitation to have the image in their esteemed calendar series.




Image: (Tech Camera, Schneider 72mm Apo-Digitar L Lens, Phase One P45+ MF Digital Back) 

Full Digital Capture

After many years of analog capture (much of it dating back to darkroom days with chemistry and progressing into drum scanned 4x5" film to create the best digital file at the time) we have become a 100% digital capture studio as of 2010.

It was an enormous step both financially and logistically, and in all respects it has been a welcomed change. It was a long road to figure out what system could match the working methods and quality of my beloved 4x5" view camera. This was the hallmark camera format that  Ansel Adams and every architectural photographer of the past used to create their work. The quality of this format is astounding, producing 1.5 GB of information said to be contained in a 4x5" transparency. Perhaps even more important than just the sheer amount of information, is how that information is delivered to that film. The optics (the #1 formative component in image quality) are exceptional. Also with the perspective controls and symmetrical lens design of large format lenses (almost all) you get a striking image with a true rendering of form that can allow the artist to represent their subject honestly. The deep concentration needed to work in this format can also have a magical effect on the aesthetic end of the spectrum as well. Simply, when exercised correctly, I feel there is no other camera system for me, to produce images at the highest level.

After a few years of using 4x5" and 35mm digital side by side I was fed up. The 4x5" was an astounding quality but the workflow and cost of the image was impractical. I was fortunate enough too to have a good working relationship with FUJIFILM, and worked with them in testing their films and producing images for their advertising. In the final five years of shooting analog, I never bought a piece of 4x5" film. At $5+ per frame, it helped monumentally in continuing the usage of said 4x5". Even with the free film, it was costing me around $100 to produce a final finished image. Then came the task of finding a good lab for processing and scanning the film. So I settled on Chrome in DC to process my film and West Coast Imaging in Oakhurst, CA to drum scan it! Yes, the film came to me from Japan, got processed in DC, and got drum scanned in California. Aside from being ridiculous, this process was too caustic on the environment with all the shipping and chemicals. This sums me up though, anything for the best image.

So why not get a Nikon or Canon and some tilt-shift lenses and be done with it? Quality, would be my answer. Perhaps if I didn't have a large format background and hadn't seen what was possible, then I would be happy with the 35mm digital image. I am not knocking 35mm, I think it is the best option for 99.8% percent of photographers.  I own the latest bodies and use them for very long lens work that simply isn't available to do on a technical camera. For anything not long lens, the quality is night and day. I have been very fortunate to work with some great design professionals and organizations and their years of hard work and message deserves the highest attention and representation.

So what is my current camera platform? I am shooting everything on a Phase One P45+ Medium Format Digital Back on a technical camera with all digital view camera lenses. The lenses are "traditional" style view camera lenses but have been furthered refined for better resolution and color rendering required by the modern digital sensor. In simple terms, after having seen a lot of files, from a lot of different imaging platforms, these lenses are astounding. These ARE the best lenses I have ever used. To have these lenses focus that light onto a Phase One digital back is a true pleasure. The quality of the platform is astounding.

So this is how our studio is producing images at the moment. Who, what, when, and where to come in future posts!

Blogging commence!!!

I have joined the ranks of blogging professionals after some thought on whether it made sense or would serve to benefit my company. My website is managed by a company and edited by me in a manner that is so simple, I can update my website in little more time than it takes to send an email. For a "traditional" harder to edit website, I think blogging is a no brainer. Anyhow, here we are now, I plan to use this site as a less formal platform to let my thoughts and experiences flow a bit more freely than in the stricter clean format of my website. My work can be viewed at:

www.patrickrossphotography.com