Hello! Welcome to my website. I’m Rick. I photograph buildings, nice places and buildings in nice places. And I write about photography on my blog.
I am a professionally qualified photographer based in Dorset. I specialise in architectural, commercial, landscape and travel photography. And that is all!
I am an all round nice chap. Please get in touch so we can create some great photos.
Rick McEvoy Photography - Estate Agent Photography in Poole
This is one of my favourite exterior photos of a recently constructed house in Poole. A stunning recently constructed house in Poole that is.
Photographed for the architect, Kendall Kingscott, this house is one of a pair in a luxury development in Poole not far from the sea. The main contractor was Spetisbury Construction.
And the secret to this photo?
A painters pole........
Private house photographed for the architect
I must finish off 2017 with an architectural photography image, and have chosen this lovely house I was fortunate enough to photograph for the architect who designed the remodelled and refurbished space.
I was commissioned by the architect to photograph this lovely, secluded country residence as part of their portfolio for their brand new website.
This is the first shot I took, on the first of the buildings I was commissioned to photograph. This image was image number 1 in the set issued to the client. So this is the first image. You get that!
This picture was a demonstration of preparation and planning - I visited the property at what I thought was the best time whilst loosely passing the property - this is not a place you just pass by! I managed to work out the best timing to photograph the externals of the building, which was 45 minute of my time well spent.
I do not have the luxury after all of full days funded by the client - I have to get the job done within the pre-agreed timescales.
I cannot share on my photography blog all the images from this shoot, as this is someone’s house, someone’s private space. The photographs were taken for the architect for their website, and once they have published the images on their website I will see about using some of the images on my website, but for now they stay where they are.
It’s not all about me after all. Sure I own the copyright to all the images I take but they are taken for clients, and their needs come before mine.
Anyway, that is all from me for 2017. Until the New Year....
The extension to the hall at St Anthony's School
A shock new entry in my Top 10 images of 2016 is this picture of an extension to a school hall. I have never shared this image other than with the client.
One of the features of this extension is the brand new Granwood flooring, which you can see very prominently in the foreground. Oh yes I forgot to say, the building extension was photographed for the architect, Kendall Kingscott. The builder was Drew Construction.
This could be a construction product shot, a picture of Granwood flooring, and not an architectural photography image of a building extension.
So why is this in my top 10 I hear you say (well I hear something in my head!).
Why?
Because I like the depth of this image, and the different perspective. I want my interior photography to give the space being photographed the room and the air to breathe (does that make any sense?), and this shot does this perfectly. Well I think so.
I like photographing scenes from different angles. High, low, left, right. And this was as low as I could go! And it was a deliberate composition - this was exactly what I was looking for in the image.
Happy Boxing Day everybody - back to normal tomorrow......
Monday 26th December 2016
Picture of the DFRS HQ and Dorchester Fire Station photographed for the architect
Image number 1 in my black and white architectural photography portfolio is a picture of the Dorchester Fire Station and HQ Building.
This complex is located on the western edge of Poundbury, on the outskirts of Dorchester.
This picture of Dorchester Fire Station and Dorset Fire and Rescue Service HQ was photographed for the architect, Carden Croft Calder Peel, and the builder Morgan Sindall.
(When I say image number 1 it was actually image number 6 but I am working in date order don't forget!)
First the starting point in my black and white processing.
The preset I chose was Full dynamic (smooth). I did not like the harsh variant, and this works nicely on this building.
Followed by
These three adjustments were made to make the building stand out from its background (which was unfinished tarmac looking a bit of a mess anyway so no problem with hiding that!).
I tried the various colour filters, and this one just added that final extra bit of pop.
And that was that. I didn’t like any of the other adjustments, anything else was changing something for the sake of it which I do not do.
I want to produce striking imagery, but I also wasn’t a style that is artistic, stylish but still realistic. This is all about pulling as much as possible out of an image, and also finding a repeatable style for my commercial work.
Photograp taken on my Canon 5DCanon 5D, Canon 17-40mm lens. Focal length used was 22mm Exposure was 1/750th of a second, F11, ISO200.
Here is the colour version of this image directly above the black and white version so you can make a comparison between the two.
DFRS HQ and Dorchester Fire Station photographed for the builder Morgan Sindall
DFRS HQ and Dorchester Fire Station - architectural photography by Rick McEvoy
For more information about the invaluable work carried out by Dorset Fire and Rescue Service head over to their website at http://www.dorsetfire.gov.uk
Thursday 15th September 2016
Picture of a brand new house in Poole, Dorset
The final image in my photography portfolio is this picture of a brand new house in Poole.
This really is at actual completion of the works. Literally.
I had to do an mount of work in Photoshop to remove the builders debris, which consisted of
I did not have time to move all this stuff as I had to squeeze this shoot in between the builders leaving site and people moving stuff in, so I had to make the unfortunate decision to just shoot and fix later.
I always want to get the content of the image correct in camera but this is not always possible.
I have photographed buildings with people stood just out of frame waiting to deliver or install something.
But this is what I choose to do. This is my specialism.
This is the actual client edit with two subtle adjustments.
I have brightened the image by 0.3 of a stop by sliding the exposure slider in the basic panel to the right just enough to brighten the image without blowing the highlights.
And then I added a vignette in Lightroom to make the centre of the image stand out. It was quite a strong vignette of -40.
Oh and by the way I never change any of the settings in Lightroom for a vignette other than the amount, which normally is just enough less 5 points. I go to where I want it then ease back a little.
I have 37 black and white images so need to sort that out. Coming next on my blog will be the black and white portfolio, image by image, along with an explanation of how I produced the images using only Nik Silver Efex Pro.
Tuesday 13th September 2016
Lower Bridmore Farm, Dorset, by architecture photographer Rick McEvoy
This is a picture of a room in Lower Bridmore Farm, Dorset.
Sometimes less is more and I like this shot. It is clearly a room. With nice stuff going on outside the room.
And the light is important. The light coming in from the window reflecting off the old polished floorboard.
This image was part of a set of 30 images, as I said, taken for the architect.
I have processed this image in Adobe Lightroom, where I did the following (I will continue after my Lightroom induced cuppa break!).
Seriously Lightroom is just sat there doing nothing other than slowing everything else down. It does I this from time to time. All I do is shut it down and fire it up again and it is just fine.
I have taken a virtual copy of this image in Lightroom, and done a completely new edit for my portfolio.
I wanted to draw out the reflection and detail in the flooring, in particular the light reflecting off the floor from the window. I also wanted to get more detail out of the tree and grass in the background. These two features place this as an old building in the country.
In Lightroom I carried out the usual corrections in the basic panel to the following sliders
(I never use the Saturation slider)
I did a bit of work in the HSL panel, where I used the Targeted Adjustment Tool to darken and accentuate the blues and greens in the window.
Some dodging and burning (which I probably do to every image), sort the sharpening and then over to Photoshop for a bit of work removing the smoke detector and curtain fixings, as well as removing some debris from the floor.
It was not straight.
I had forgotten to do the verticals, and most importantly this shot need a slight horizontal rotation, which I did.
And that is another portfolio image in the bag!
Tuesday 30th August 2016
Interior photography by Rick McEvoy
THe image was all about the sun shining through the window. That big burst of golden sun. The school is very close to the water and Poole Harbour, a wonderful location for a picture of a Dorset school. I was photographing the extension to the school, and being local I knew where the sun would be approaching sunset. In the colour image the picture is all about the burst of sunshine, a golden glow with vibrant blue sky.
This is produced from another portfolio image, one that has had an amount of detailed polishing and refining from the client issue image.
The black and white conversion using Nik Silver Efex Pro was much more straightforward than the work required to produce the client and portfolio images.
Preset - Underexposed
Red filter
Done.
Fantastic isn't it. As long as you try the presets, you can quickly get great black and white images every time!
I don't have any black and website pages yet, but you can view a selection of my interior photography work at www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk/interior-photographer.
8th August 2016