Every time we arrive at Los Suenos we feel like we’re being instantly transported into a kind of dream world. A world with perfectly manicured gardens, gorgeous little shops and restaurants, rows upon rows of high end luxury yachts and stunningly appointed condos with views for days. It really is that perfect.
We’ve been going there for years. We love popping in to wander around, check out the views and pretend like we’re on vacation! I hear this is pretty common for people like us who live in paradise year round. Once you’ve lived here long enough, life no longer feels like vacation. We all still need an escape.
JP has also developed a mild obsession with the Cubano sandwich and their homemade “kechup-like” salsa at Dolce Vita.
One time on our of our visits, we scored big and noticed a huge yacht posted up in the middle of the bay. Luckily we had the drone with us, so we flew it up from the beach in Herradura to do some re-con. Turns out we ended up capturing the #2 luxury private expedition yacht in the world.
Her name is Luna, and she’s fully equipped with 10 VIP guest cabins, state of the art anti-missile system, bullet-proof windows and 2 heli pads. No biggie. It can be yours for $360 million, or if that’s a little out of your price range, you can pick up one of their life boats for $4 mil and change.
Anyways, I digress. Back to shooting the new condo…
In the past year, we started doing work for a really talented interior designer in Los Suenos, Natural Instinct. We’ve worked with lots of interior designers in the city, and I can honestly say, they have an absolute dream team of brilliant and creative designers. Their work is understated, elegant and each member of the team is a joy to work with.
We’ve shot a handful of spaces for their portfolio and both of their store locations. Then they recently asked us to shoot the new model condo that they had just finished decorating in the hills. But this one would be a little different than the usual brief.
Since it was the model unit, Los Suenos Resort and Marina also needed images for their property website and tournament guide. So this time we had 2 clients, each with totally unique needs and visions for the content they needed.
As interior designers looking to show off their design abilities, Natural Instinct wanted a combination of detailed shots that captured the various micro design elements, as well as a wider perspective showing off each area and how the elements tie together to create an overall design aesthetic.
For LSRM the focus was more on wide shots showing off the entire space and also exteriors that capture the setting and the views.
One massive selling feature was the floor to ceiling retractable glass walls that open the living room up to the wrap around deck and million dollar views.
This is one of the main challenges with this type of property photography. To capture the inside at the perfect exposure and not loose the views. The answer? Multiple exposures. Or HDR. But it’s tricky to nail and make it look natural. I’m sure many of you have seen some pretty horrific looking HDR’s that look more like a amateur watercolor paintings than a photo. Our latest technique that we find works the best is 5 exposures with a flash fill and a lot of love and care in post (editing).
They also gave us guidelines on which perspectives they wanted to replicate based on renderings. We were careful to capture those perspectives, but also deliver a little variety and put our own spin on it so they would have options to choose from.
As for the exteriors, the weather got pretty overcast and cloudy. Not ideal when you’re trying to showcase the views, so we scheduled a re-shoot for a few days later. The challenge was to frame up the condo nicely, but also hide the construction happening next door with another building going up.
In the end, everyone loved the images and each client felt that we nailed the brief.
As usual, it was a pleasure working with the team at Natural Instinct. The condo was stunning. Modern, sophisticated and opulent. They blew us away with their work yet again and getting the opportunity to work with Los Suenos for the first time was icing on the cake.
Thank you Natural Instinct and Los Suenos for making us a part of this brilliant collaboration. We’re excited for what’s next…
