The Blog Has Moved

The Aaron Leitz Photography Blog has moved to a new location: www.aaronleitz.com/blog. All new posts will be going there.

For my precious few amazingly awesome subscribers, please update your readers/feeds/whatever you call it. I’ll be updating the link on my website soon as well (possibly adding a link to the front page. We’ll see…)

The Winter 2011 Issue of Luxe Interiors + Design Magazine

I’ve got another nice photo spread in the new Winter 2011 issue of Luxe Interiors + Design magazine.

This project was a complete restoration/remodel of a gorgeous early 1900′s home in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood. Sutro Architects, Ryan Associates, and Kendall Wilkinson Interior Design collaborated with great success to bring the residence back to its former glory.

Hey wait….I just realized that I blogged about this shoot early last year. So I don’t need to bore you with all the details again.

Kurtwood Farms Cabin

A few weeks ago I took the ferry over to Vashon Island in the pouring rain to photograph the interiors of the oldest cabin on the island. It was a delightful change of pace from the typical modern interior.

The cabin, a historical landmark, is home to Kurt Timmermeister of Kurtwood Farms. Kurt owned Seattle’s popular Cafe Septieme for almost two decades before selling it a few years ago to focus his energy on the 13 acres of farmland on the island that he has called home for more than 15 years. Today, Kurtwood Farms is a full fledged dairy farm that produces Dinah’s Cheese, a creamy camembert style cheese coveted by local restaurants.

It’s times like these when I wish I was a better writer so that I could more eloquently convey just how interesting and fantastic a place Kurtwood Farms is and just how interesting and cool a guy Kurt is. I hope to return for another visit in the Spring.

Kurt himself is a writer and just finished his first book that’s part memoir and part how-to-start-your-own-farm-instruction-manual entitled “Growing a Farmer: How I Learned to Live Off the Land”.

Builder+Architect Magazine

The December 2010 issue of Builder+Architect Magazine is all about Seattle’s floating homes and features the Ryan Mankoski designed and Dyna Contracting built floating home that I photographed for them earlier this year.

I’ve also got a full page ad running on the inside cover of the magazine that I think turned out really nice. For this first iteration of the ad I wanted to keep things simple and let the image do the talking:

Cool Video Links Pt1

I’ve been spending days and days researching and learning about the world of video “motion.” Ignoring artistry and aesthetics for now, the equipment, technical and logistical concerns are so much more complex than still photography. There’s codecs and NLEs and bins and filters and fluid heads and grading and dollys and booms and fps and just tinkering around in iMovie takes me HOURS and plenty of F-Bombs. I am, however, enjoying all the learning and in my hours of searching I’ve come across some pretty cool stuff. Here’s a few recent vids that caught my eye….

It might take a watch or two to get past the absolutely jaw dropping freestyle riding skills of Danny MacAskill featured in this video but notice how well done the camera/post work is as well:

An artful skate video:

And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t include something that had to do with architecture. Here’s a wonderful ode to Louis Kahn’s iconic Exeter Library done completely in CGI. Amazing:

Fall Photo Shoot with Terry Hunziker

A small selection of finished images from my photo shoot a few weeks ago with Seattle interior designer extraordinaire Terry Hunziker. We so lucked out with the November weather on the day of the shoot I still can’t believe it. I arrived at the apartment early that morning, dropped my stuff in the entry hall, walked in to the main living area, saw the gorgeous light and shadows and textures, stopped, tilted my head back, closed my eyes, smiled and said “yessssssssssss……”

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Trying out WordPress’ slideshow thing. Looks pretty good IMHO.

Hello Video

Look what arrived on the doorstep of Aaron Leitz Photography International Headquarters this afternoon:

What have I gotten myself in to? …..

Seattle in November

Just your typical November afternoon in Seattle. Blue skies, temperature in the low 70′s, gentle breeze. It’s like this every year…Actually that’s a lie. The last time Seattle had a November 4th like this was back in 1949. I was just a young fledgling photographer back then. Ok, that’s a lie too.

I can’t think of a better way to spend a record setting sunny Fall day than photographing a new project for client and pal Terry Hunziker.

Final images to come…

Olive Way Starbucks

Last week I photographed the newly remodeled Olive Way Starbucks store the weekend before it’s grand opening/unveiling to the public.

There has been a lot of buzz around this store for a number of reasons but primarily because it represents a major new direction for Starbucks. While both “inspired by Starbucks” stores in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood have been serving beer and wine for almost a year, The Olive Way store will be the first branded Starbucks store to serve beer and wine (after 4pm).

Blog Theme

I’ve been messing around with the blog the past few days trying to get a look that I like and have settled on WordPress’ “Oulipo” theme for now. I like the fonts and the layout. I was really jazzed on some Graph Paper Press themes but it’s going to take some work and lots of help from the brother-in-law to configure and get it all working.

I also kinda like “Wu Wei” and may switch to that in the next few hours. It’s not as elegant as “Oulipo” but it does allow for viewing images larger than 460 pixels. Decisions decisions!