An infusion of natural light

The architectural photography of Jim BartsCh

Ansel Adams said, “To the complaint, ‘There are no people in these photographs,’ I respond, ‘There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.’”

There are no people in Jim Bartsch’s photographs. But he really doesn’t need any.

He specializes in architecture, where a building is the star, not a person. He shoots high-end homes primarily, but also restaurants, hotels, and other commercial spaces. Many of his photographs are used in real estate marketing materials, while others are on websites of interior designers; in ads for contractors; and in magazine articles, including Food & Home.

Santa Barbara’s famed southern exposure provides highly desirable lighting for exterior shots, and what Mother Nature does not provide, Bartsch enhances. Mountain top estates are bathed in golden rays of sunset, with every window lit from within. Likewise, interiors are crisp and inviting, with ocean views perfectly exposed through aptly named “picture windows.”

“My goal is to capture the natural light, but that’s impossible to do in one shot,” he says, sitting at his dining room table on a bright spring morning before he begins work in his home studio.

Using a post-production technique called “compositing,” he utilizes a computer program to combine images of different elements. That ocean view comes from one photo, the interior from another. “I use lighting to blend them together,” he adds.

His work is much in demand, particularly winter through spring, when he admits to working “all the time,” with breaks for bike rides, his preferred form of exercise. That allows for annual “off season” trips with wife Catherine, a sales rep. They travel to Croatia this fall.

Bartsch’s dramatic animal photos from recent African safaris hang on the dining room walls, but he insists that he is better suited to architecture. “My brain works better with architecture,” he deadpans, unaware that he sitting below his beautifully composed photo of giraffes.

“I want to document the space, but it has to have esthetic appeal,” he says. “I strive for the details. If I’m going to do it, I want it to be perfect. No chair is pulled out of place. It takes longer, as we have to do a lot of tweaking, but it looks better.”

This is from a man who didn’t own his own camera until he was 22 years old. The Colorado native had a job at a Kodak manufacturing plant, but had little interest in photography until the company offered employees a deal on 110 Instamatic cartridge-based cameras.

Wanting more control over his images, Bartsch bought a 35mm Vivitar system and took it with him on vacation to California. While in San Francisco, he snapped an image of seagulls flying behind a boat. It later won a company photography contest, and then won an Honorable Mention in Kodak’s international competition.

“That spurred me,” he recalls. “We had two staff photographers at the plant, and both had gone to the Brooks Institute for their training.” He moved to Santa Barbara and began his studies there in 1985.

At that time, there were no courses at Brooks on architectural photography, but he took a one-week seminar on interiors. An ad in the Santa Barbara News-Press set him on his current course. “A Carlsbadbased company needed a photographer in Santa Barbara to do high-end real estate brochures. I built my business from that.”

New digital technologies have added more control, Bartsch reports. He made the transition from film in steps, initially by scanning his film transparencies and manipulating digitally. That prepared him for the eventual switch to digital cameras; he currently uses Canon cameras in his work.

He typically takes anywhere from two to ten photos of an interior, for example, and more if there are more windows. At the computer later, it takes an average of 12 minutes to composite and put final touches on each image.

“Many people don’t understand the importance of a strong photo to capture the attention of potential buyers,” he says. “It’s critical.”

He recalls a client reporting that an ad featuring his photo of a Padero

Lane ocean-front home had run in New York, and been seen by a billionaire who flew out in his private plane within days and bought it. Similarly, a man in Connecticut saw an image online, flew out, and purchased the El Capitan ranch estate.

Though he has shot many homes owned by celebrities, he won’t “shoot-and-tell.” Bartsch does report that he photographed Michael Jackson’s former home Neverland, which was on the market recently, and last January, he photographed the Playboy Mansion. “There are no bigger properties than those,” he concludes.

“He is definitely an artist,” adds Food & Home Publisher, Phil Kirkwood. “He can take what would be an ordinary, everyday space and somehow inject the dramatic. He has a unique quality to his photos, from the angles he chooses, to the styling of the shot, to the light he creates in post computer work.”