I had a really fun opportunity to take some photos for Chári Herndon, designer at Chic Home Style, of her apartment balcony. Chári was chosen by Home Depot to be one of 18 interior designers/design bloggers from all across the country to participate in the Home Depot Patio Style Challenge!
The Home Depot Patio Style Challenge is a really cool promotional idea where Home Depot curates their blog (Yes Home Depot has a blog. Who knew?) with some of the best home decorators they can find nationwide. H. D. contacts these designers with the "challenge", this time was the patio but they've done Holiday in the past as well. The designers send in the measurements of their space and H. D. ships them patio furniture and accessories from the new line to fit their space FO FREE! Once the designers receive their product they decorate their patios, write a blog including photos and submit it to be posted on Home Depot's blog for the world to see. Pretty sweet deal, right? Now the consumer can go read blogs from professional decorators and top notch DIYers and see how they used Home Depot product to make their outdoor spaces look amazing.
Chári is a really talented interior designer who's a recent transplant to Houston and she was so fun to work with. She needed professional photography for her blog submission and I was so excited to do this shoot when she contacted me. Her Galleria apartment balcony is only around 60 square feet so I was a little concerned that there wouldn't be much space to work with. However, when I walked into her apartment she had every inch of her 1,117 square foot apartment perfectly and elegantly arranged and decorated. 1,117 sq ft is not big y'all! Chic Home Style specializes in decorating small spaces and is really good at it.
I used the trusty Canon 6D with Canon f/1.4 and wide angle zoom f/4 lenses. We did one session around 10 am and then I came back around 7:30 pm and shot until dark, using longer exposures to show off the outdoor string lights and lantern.
Due to the crazy storms up north a lot of the designers chosen for the patio style challenge didn't receive their product by the original deadline so even though we rescheduled once Chári was missing some throw pillows and lanterns when we did her photo shoot. She took some additional photos herself of the missing items when they arrived so some of those photos will be mixed in her blog submission along side the photos I took. Also, due to an exclusivity clause in the agreement with H. D. I could not use the same photos on my blog or website as the ones chosen for Chári's blog submission. Therefore there were more preferable compositions than some of these but you can see those on the H. D. blog!
To see Chári's blog and the photos I did for her on the Home Depot page click here!
