Photography and Video in Costa Rica » bidrop.com

Kyla’s Family photography, Playa Conchal, Costa Rica.

Toh Gouttenoire — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:02:50 +0000

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A family portrait session on Playa Conchal in front of the Reserva Conchal.

Wedding Heather and Ed – Playa Potrero “Hotel Bahia del sol”

Toh Gouttenoire — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 04:19:22 +0000

Ed and Heather surfers from New Jersey had a wonderful sunset for their wedding in Playa Potrero, Guanacaste Costa Rica.

Here is a word from the newly weds…

Toh, Heather and I wanted to thank you so much.The pictures are killer, they turned out amazing. The whole family loves them. We also just received the dvd in the mail today. We are headed on a honeymoon next week we will order some prints and enlargements when we get back.

PURA VIDA

ED and HEATHER

Wedding photography in Costa Rica: www.weddingbybidrop.com

Real Estate Photography Tips For Realtors – Don’t Do it Yourself, You’ll Lose Your Commission Check…

Toh Gouttenoire — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:39:27 +0000

Casa Puro Dieces – Playa Tamarindo, Costa Rica

I found this link to an article by Josh F. Sanders who is a Real Estate Broker and the Founder of Shiloh Street University in Seattle, WA, an online marketing school designed specifically for Realtors and agents.

Josh says:

“…it all came down to the listing pictures they saw online. That’s one of the essential real estate marketing tips for listings! Give buyers a great picture and they’ll jump inside the house that day. Give them a “do-it-yourself” picture and they’ll move onto the next home. The listing pictures make the difference, especially when you spend a few bucks on professional real estate photography!

Even when the listing pictures were better than the actual house, guess what? It still got the buyers inside! That’s your goal as a listing agent; get as many showings as possible. Professional real estate photography makes that happen!”

I point articles like this out because they offer good marketing copy for real estate photographers. Josh has some pretty good catch phrases for real estate photographers. Some photographers have links to these kind of articles on their sites.

Wedding at the Langosta Beach Club (Tamarindo Preserve).

Toh Gouttenoire — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 04:31:46 +0000

Courtney and Edgar, were married in Chicago, like a week ago, in almost total secrecy, the trip to Costa Rica was already planned, they then had the idea to have a photography session on the beach in order to make some cards and announce the good news to the family… They were staying at the Paradisus Conchal, but decided to have the photos shots somewhere else, I proposed them Tamarindo, we met at the beautiful newly open “Langosta beach club” (Tamarindo Preserve) and had a hour session on location and on the beach… the sunset was absolutely amazing that day…

When asked why they chose Costa Rica for their honeymoon, Courtney answered: “CR it’s our initials… so…”

A truly unique couple…

Here is a word from the bride:

Hello Toh!

I just wanted to thank you for the AMAZING photos that you sent us. We have started to share the first few with our friends and family back here in the US and they are in awe! You captured such stunning moments, and we cannot thank you enough and looking very, very forward to see the rest!

Wedding at the Langosta Beach Club from Bidrop.com on Vimeo.

Wedding photography in Costa Rica

Engagement Maria, Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica.

Toh Gouttenoire — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:16:50 +0000

A one hour morning session in Playa Flamingo.

Engagement Maria Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica. from Bidrop.com on Vimeo.

Engagement Maria Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica.
www.weddingbybidrop.com

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www.weddingbybidrop.com

To Sell a Luxe Apartment, No Ordinary Snapshot Will Do. NYT article.

Toh Gouttenoire — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:35:30 +0000

Another great article about real estate photography and its importance in dragging prospective buyers to a “live” visit and an easier sale.

David Paler purposefully strode through the cloud-nipping stretches of an $8.25 million Manhattan apartment, took in the set before him and called out demands with the directorial authority of Martin Scorsese. Then he assumed his position behind his camera, nodded in satisfaction and began shooting away.

While Mr. Paler may not be a renowned filmmaker or the favored photographer of the model Gisele Bündchen, his work is as scrutinized and touched up as any feature film or Vogue shoot. Mr. Paler photographs apartments for sales and rental listings.

These photographs, the real estate equivalent of head shots, are the bait that lure buyers to Sunday open houses. When these photos work, they help buyers picture themselves holding parties in their dining rooms.

Brokers hope that these photos will persuade bidders to pay more. At their worst, they invite derision for trivialities like a preponderance of throw pillows, causing buyers to move on to other listings.

“They’re huge,” said Suzanne Johansson, a broker who is selling an apartment at 111 West 67th Street that Mr. Paler was photographing. Photographs, she said, determined whether buyers were “going to be interested or not.”

It does not take much time with a real estate photographer to learn how deceptively hard taking marketable shots can be. Mr. Paler compares some shoots to “diplomatic missions” where you are “walking on egg shells.” Even at a professionally designed apartment like the West 67th Street home, Mr. Paler negotiated with two brokers and a stylist about dragging an elaborate dog bed out of a shot, moving around chairs and risking the safety of the selling family’s pet frog by unplugging its tank.

He tensely called for colorful items like plants and cookbooks to enliven the apartment’s neutral shades and added a basket of lemons in a photo because, “Lemon fresh — it’s psychological.” (He turned down a stylist’s offer to add a Buddha.) Toilets and trash baskets never stay in the picture. Through the shoot, he periodically glanced up at the horizon to track the ominous, chalky clouds. He would brighten skies later by combining shots and adding in light. In this market, he said, sellers and brokers were especially concerned that photos were flawless.

“It’s very acute right now,” he said. “Brokers are the psychiatrists. We’re kind of like the psychiatrists to the psychiatrists.”

Some of these photographers, not surprisingly, also do fashion and magazine work, but a few focus on only real estate. They are paid by brokers, and their fees vary, but a typical two-hour assignment, including travel time, may cost $250 for four published shots, and editing may take one more hour.

Caryn Leigh Posnansky has spent the last 16 months shooting apartments for sale, ranging in price from $250,000 to $19 million, for VHT, a Chicago-based real estate photo agency. Her less glamorous assignments have included scooping soap out of New Yorkers’ soap dishes and persuading one seller to throw away the bouncy chair he kept for his 3-year-old.

At a 19th-floor studio at 150 West End Avenue, she found herself with plenty of clutter to clear. The apartment had a renter who was less concerned about making the place listing-ready. Ms. Posnansky and a Corcoran broker, Sheila McCarthy, feverishly moved around books, took out recycling, removed mementos from the refrigerator and even pushed a desk chair into the hallway to present the portrait of a pristine and uncluttered apartment. After capturing her shots, Ms. Posnansky returned every book, magnet, fortune cookie and dead plant to its original location.

“They’ll never know we were here,” she chirped while wheeling a desk chair back into the apartment.

Some photographers spend more time physically transforming spaces. When Nico Arellano, a former set stylist from Uruguay, came in to photograph an eighth-floor, $2.3 million three-bedroom at 530 East 72nd Street, he realized that a couch and a pair of chairs swallowed up the space and did not show how large the living room actually was. Mr. Arellano, with help from two Halstead brokers, Ann Bialek and Madalyn Robbins, moved an entire living room of furniture. He would later edit the flat-screen television out of the shot.

“Sometimes we literally just change everything around,” he said.

There are more technical ways to make, say, a Lilliputian bedroom look merely small: using a wide-angle lens to fit the entire room into a single photo, or shooting the room at an angle from a corner rather than straight on.

“The wide angle is a must,” Mr. Arellano said. “The corner thing is my preference.”

Even a meticulously kept $1.15 million one-bedroom at 39 East 12th Street, with an accepted offer no less, benefited from a little magic. Its Halstead broker, Jane Greenberg, said that in this market she did not want to take any chances. So she hired Jay Bierach to take additional photographs highlighting the renovated windows and kitchen. On a recent overcast morning, Mr. Bierach wheeled in his camera and lights. For nearly an hour he snapped away and tried to add light with camera and flashes. Then he wrapped it up. He would have to find more sunshine back at his studio.

“I try to use as much daylight as possible,” he said. “I do what they want, and then I do what I need to do.”

By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

Published: June 21, 2010

Real estate photography in Costa Rica: www.bidrop.com

Lisa & Jon – Hotel Capitan Suizo, Playa Tamarindo, Costa Rica Wedding photography.

Toh Gouttenoire — Fri, 21 May 2010 21:58:20 +0000

Wedding and elopment photography in Costa Rica: www.weddingbybidrop.com

“Paradise Lost: No Condos for Oasis Investors”

Toh Gouttenoire — Fri, 21 May 2010 18:27:18 +0000

Photos from Toh Gouttenoire Illustrate the Tico Times article “Paradise Lost: No Condos for Oasis Investors” (by Adam Williams) about the Tamarindo development.

Short Shrift : Hired to guard the construction site at Tamarindo Oasis, José Alberto Vargas, 59, from San José, claims he has not been paid for his past year on the stalled project, only given some food.

Shells with a View: Tamarindo Oasis Condominiums, sold on promises of paradise, await resolution of a financial conflict in a case that is winding its way through Costa Rican courts.

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Horizonte del mar #201 – Playa Langosta – Real Estate Photography

Toh Gouttenoire — Wed, 05 May 2010 21:58:37 +0000

It is always a pleasure to shoot in Playa langosta especially at Horizonte del mar, right on the beach…

I’m not a big fan of HDR (High Dynamic Range, when you mix different exposure of the same scene to avoid burned or under exposed part of the image), so I had to light full power my new SB 900 and my faithfull SB 800 to fight that strong Costa Rican sun… even if I admit there is two photos in image #3…

RPM Services specializes in the management of luxury residences and condominiums exclusively in Playas Tamarindo and Langosta. Visit them here.

Real Estate photograpy in Costa Rica

New wedding website for wedding photography and videography in Costa Rica…

Toh Gouttenoire — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 23:06:33 +0000

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Bidrop.com is happy to say that we’re working on our new website: www.weddingbybidrop.com.

Weddingbybidrop.com will be the website dedicated to wedding photography and video in Costa Rica. We also shoot Honeymoon and vows renewal.

For 7 years Toh Gouttenoire has been shooting (in photography and video) for Bidrop.com and other company more than 100 weddings in Costa Rica, mainly sunset beach photography in Guanacaste, but also, weddings in Arenal, Jaco, Manuel Antonio, Playa del Coco, Montezuma, Malpais, Playa Langosta, Playa Flamingo, playa potrero, puerto viejo, Limon, playa Tamarindo…

WeddingbyBidrop.com is working with high end customers as Hacienda Pinilla, JW Marriott Guanacaste, Los Sueños Marriott, Paradisus playa conchal, Capitan Suizo, Hotel resort Diria, , Los Altos de Eros, Four Seasons Papagayo, Villa Caletas, Sugar Beach, Bahia del Sol, Flamingo beach resort…

Please visit our wedding photography website and contact us with any inquiries.